Ask the Author: Elvis Alves

“Ask me a question.” Elvis Alves

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Happy greetings Elvis! Quite a few of the poems in your Bitter Melon volume touch on food and one of my favourites is 'Left Behind.' There you evoke food in the most delightful ways, for example, "The women cooked food the smell of which woke the sleeping dogs at the time of siesta." My questions are, do you cook? Do you find yourself composing poetry whilst you are engaged in cooking? Thank you!

Elvis Alves Rouchswalwe. Thanks for checking in, and for the question. Yes. I do cook. I love to cook. But I am most curious about the process of cooking. I see cooking as a science. One creates when one cooks, so it's an art form to me (like writng poetry:) I also see it as tying one to a specific culture or location. This was on my mind when I wrote the verse that you quoted. What do the foods I cook and eat say about me, about where I am from? So, food serves a very important role in my writing. You can say that it's like a historical document that I search for meaning (along with being scientific). I do a similar thing with music and with language.

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Elvis Alves

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