Poetry Friday--Shrimp and Corn Chowder

Photo by Jonny Valiant courtesy RealSimple.com

I was considering making soup and I decided to write a poem about one that has been on my mind--shrimp and corn chowder. (Don't ask why, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess I was hungry?)

So, how to start? The best way to begin is by assembling a list of ingredients.

Ingredients

unsalted butter
celery, thinly sliced
onions or scallions, chopped
carrots, diced
potatoes, diced
corn, cut from the cob
thyme
bay leaves
salt and pepper
all-purpose flour
milk
shrimp, peeled and deveined


I wrote an extremely clichéd poem about traveling to the ends of the earth to gather ingredients and then eating out. Lucky you, I had enough sense to realize how bad it was! Instead, I wrote a series of loosely related haiku that I've gathered under the title, "Shrimp and Corn Chowder."


Shrimp and Corn Chowder

in the cellar
a sprouted onion
to marvel over

chorus of "eews"
she pulls the vein
from a shrimp

her back turned
we snag pieces of
raw potato

measurement optional:
she was never afraid
of adding too much

3 x 5 cards
who knows what went
unrecorded

chipped soup bowl
--in those days no art
in presentation

the silk
on the tip of my tongue
shrimp and corn chowder

bedtime...
more than the smell of shrimp
lingers

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

This is the first week of National Poetry Month! Expect good things all month long. Begin by visiting with Amy at The Poem Farm where she is hosting the Round-Up.

And don't forget to come back for Ekphrastic Monday when I'll have the first in a series of epkrastic poems in celebration of National Poetry Month.