Read a Poem
Great British Bake Off
by Kortney Morrow
alright—you’ve got one hour on the clock. on your mark. get set. | | bake. bake bundt cakes, bavarian cream pie, bread & butter, batter a colony | | crème brûlée cracked, crème de la crème, cane crop, cut to cheery music | | dissolve yourself, absolve yourself, dip into a bowl of sugar & dilute | | 18 hour days, abstraction, extraction, they all fall down | | fold the dough, fold the memory, conceal the flavor, labor, make it flat | | grease the pan, grind the spirits, grind the spices | | half an hour to go, heat scorched, hot crossed, hasty | | icing hardens when it’s royal, infused with infliction | | jelly, jam piped in swirls around land, jamaica, jaffa cake | | knead the dough, push down and outward | | laugh at the reign, close up on the rain, liquidity, layered cake | | molasses, melted in a vat, machines mincing limbs making a mess | | nice sound when it hits the plate, nice sound when they hit the floor | | orange zest dripping down parchment, down parliament | | pull the legacy out the oven, prove the dough, prove it | | quiche, classic, quite a lot of them, quite more of us | | raw sugar, rum cake, reduce the rights | | saffron, cardamom, simmer down, there can only be one star baker, millions of soggy bottoms | | try a triangle cookie cut out, the trigonometric trade, a technical challenge | | upside down cake, top down cake, upright presentation, use whatever is at your station, use whoever you deem disposable | | very much vanilla, very much not racist | | whipped, whisked, the west indies, anything for white gold | | xenophobic, exile out | | yummy in my tummy, sweet teeth, tick tock, times up | | zero. bakers, bring what you’ve made to the front for judging.
Great British Bake Off by Kortney Morrow. 2024. Used by permission of the author.
About the Author
Kortney Morrow is a poet creating from her studio in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has received support from 68to05, The Academy of American Poets, Obsidian, Prairie Schooner, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Tin House, and Transition Magazine. She is the winner of the 2023 Ohioana Library Association Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant and has her MFA in Creative Writing from The Ohio State University. Follow the latest updates here @iamkortney.
Write a Poem
Write an ode (a poem in praise) to your favorite beverage. It may be very general, like water or milk, or very specific, like a brand of sparkling water or an eggnog recipe you use or a cocktail you’ve concocted.
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My sister and I have competed for years
To recreate the warm porridges of our youth
The controlled lumpiness of cream of wheat
that crushes mushy yummy above tongues
And when adolescent stomach's were too ill for much else
both the shallow tasting porridge that seemed like a reasonable gruel if ever a thing and the sweetened rice water almost
at a slurry too soft to chew and rather slurp
And the pinnacle in our childhood psyches,
Reserved for random-est of mornings with no
more warning than rainbows or extra coins from the seat cushions was steaming hot custard, hard to remember from a box or can, allowed to cool just above room temp
before mesmerizing taste buds
Lives on as a mark to achieve
Till then
our reports by phone or text of our futile attempts as adults
makes me savor the fading memories more
Wine. My daily delight! Not too much so I can enjoy it again. Savor the smoothness, awaken the tastebuds, complete the day.luxury in a glass
whipped cream atop
frothy hot chocolate
--winter warming
~Nancy Brady, 2024
#offthecuffhaiku
Ode to My Tea of Youth
Oh golden tea
You were my thing
When old enough
To boil water
Grown up as how
You made me feel
As I dipped your woven bag
Into my cup
Then mixed you with
great gobs of sugar and cream
Ah you pleased my palate
Into my teens
My friend and I would sit and ponder
As we talk of poems and whispered dreams
Until one day our fickle hearts
discovered the power of coffee beans
I left you behind my golden tea
Never a glance back
As with delight
I sipped my cappuccino
love it...much the same experience! Nice title.
Ode to Beer
Give me a bottle of beer:
A cold, sweaty bottle of beer.
Im not a snob,
I dont need a glass.
I drink from a longneck bottle.
What a great beverage.
When poured into a glass,
What a soft sound it makes
And frothy foam it creates.
Please pass the pretzels,
And the peanuts and mixed nuts too.
What a wonderful marriage for my brew.
Pilsner or lager,
IPA too.
A dark bock is good,
to name just a few.
Oh, beer, my beverage,
You quench and calm
as you swell my belly.
And you satisfy so well.
Yes, Ill have another!
I like this one. there is more going on here that I like than can speak to... the paragraph form, the spacing without break, really keeps one on an incessant pace. the heavy focus one on topic like a career or family while still thinking about the implications ( of that focus in other parts of our lives and maybe where it stems from in society (or history). Its a nice diddy
Amber of Tea Draped in Chinas Luminous White
A cup of tea wraps its flagrant smoke
in the thin and whitest china scarf
and the light is passing through this path,
making it all a melody played in her palm.
Those leaves that once grew far in the East
now merged yet again with the components,
the water and the air that both softly purify
and purras the liquid comes to graze
and brush the eager mouthas one may wish
that, likewise, ones breath too as it carries out
something of ones heart would meet and find
a correspondence, as much honest, warm and kind
equally cleansed and kindled with such old-time love
in a way of the sonnet made of music-molten sounds.
"...and the light is passing through this path,
making it all a melody played in her palm." perfect description!
Day 10 Write an ode (a poem in praise) to your favorite beverage. It may be very general, like water or milk, or very specific, like a brand of sparkling water or an eggnog recipe you use or a cocktail youve concocted.
A Skinny Ode
(Skinny poem form discovered by Truth Thomas)
Journey in summer, earth to heaven.
We loved you.
Tab
Coca-Cola
RC
We loved you.
Diet-rite
Ice-brick
Grandfather
We loved you.
Journey to heaven. Earth in summer.
Tovli 2024