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The Butcher's Apron: New and Selected Poems
as some women love jewels, love the jewels of life
“All the poems in this collection,” Diane Wakoski writes, “describe the ongoing process of discovering beauty and acquiring an aesthetic sensibility via food”––seeing and savoring it, cooking and sharing it, reaching out to all creation and drawing it in, devouring it, lapping it up, literally becoming one with it. In the title poem, chosen by Adrienne Rich for inclusion in Best American Poetry , the poet recalls an early memory of delight in pure color––”Red stains on a clean white bib. . . crimson blood on canvas.” Blood and crisp cotton as ink and paper, bread and wine as flesh and blood, the meal as art and as sacrament––this is the stuff of The Butcher’s Apron, a feast for lovers of “the jewels of life.”
“All the poems in this collection,” Diane Wakoski writes, “describe the ongoing process of discovering beauty and acquiring an aesthetic sensibility via food”––seeing and savoring it, cooking and sharing it, reaching out to all creation and drawing it in, devouring it, lapping it up, literally becoming one with it. In the title poem, chosen by Adrienne Rich for inclusion in Best American Poetry , the poet recalls an early memory of delight in pure color––”Red stains on a clean white bib. . . crimson blood on canvas.” Blood and crisp cotton as ink and paper, bread and wine as flesh and blood, the meal as art and as sacrament––this is the stuff of The Butcher’s Apron, a feast for lovers of “the jewels of life.”
- GenresPoetry
250 pages, Paperback
First published October 10, 2000
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About the author
Diane Wakoski
160 books56 followersWakoski is an American poet who is primarily associated with the deep image poets such as Jerome Rothenberg, Robert Kelly, and Clayton Eshleman. Throughout her work she uses legends, myth and fairy tales to create a deeply personal mythology.
She is best known for a series of poems collectively known as "The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems."
Wakoski was given the William Carlos Williams Award for her "Emerald Ice: Selected Poetry 1962-1987."
She is best known for a series of poems collectively known as "The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems."
Wakoski was given the William Carlos Williams Award for her "Emerald Ice: Selected Poetry 1962-1987."
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 11, 2007
Smoked fish, peaches, hazelnut chocolate pear torte, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Lebanese olives, boursin, braised leeks, Framboise. . . one would be hard-pressed to find a poem in Wakoski’s The Butcher’s Apron: New and Selected Poems that does not refer to food or drink. Food becomes an apotropaic device against aging, and as it appears in the title poem “The Butcher’s Apron,” it is both sustenance and “still life.” The butcher’s apron, and waxy white paper, represents a canvas for beauty and its mutations, for the blood of roast beef, as well as the figurative blood that is lost as one survives the flux from childhood to adulthood.
In Wakoski’s quest for beauty, she transmutes the mundane into the opulent, as suggested by the title “When Canned Peaches Turn into Maplelight,” in which the ersatz of canned peaches evolves backwards until preserved peach halves metamorphose into maple leaves. However, it is in her poem “Pears,” where the “I” becomes less accentuated, that Wakoski’s ability as a poet is highlighted. Once again the liaison between art and food is scrutinized, as is the process of aging. Using the interplay between beauty, maturation, and decay, she evokes both affirmation and a subtle ambivalence in her rendering of the pear as body.
Other poems where Wakoski’s dexterity is evident, particularly in her investigation of ambivalence, are “The Fear of Fat Children” and “Pamela’s Green Tomato Pie.” There are moments, however, when she becomes too plaintive, as in her long, ambitious poem “Perfume,” which contains a tirade against Terry Gross of NPR. The harangue is threaded through each section, almost as a parenthetical, and the poem, and reader, suffers because of it.
In the finale of the book, Wakoski continues her Greed series. “Greed, Part 14: The Greed for Purity” is an aggregate of gold: yellow tomatoes, goldfinches, the gold of Medea’s gaze, carp, fool’s gold, coins, sunlight; these images are woven through the poems like metallic thread, stitching the mythic with the personal. The persona of Diana inhabits these poems, weaving her way through each poem in various guises like the coil of a green serpent that becomes a scarf of gold. The main theme is alchemy: the transformation of lead into gold; but also the reverse conversion of “wine now labeled to ferment into vinegar,” and the oxidation of chocolate--both as metaphors for mortality. Always present in Wakoski’s work are these dual transactions: the way the body becomes tarnished, then needs to be burnished by human hands to restore its sheen--“this gold will never lose its lustre, despite purloin or misuse”; and its contrapuntal-- “the gold I was polishing was not real gold.” Although the quest, not the conquest, is what thrusts Wakoski’s work, it is important to note that the book ends on a bellnote of rejuvenation through fire and morning light.
In Wakoski’s quest for beauty, she transmutes the mundane into the opulent, as suggested by the title “When Canned Peaches Turn into Maplelight,” in which the ersatz of canned peaches evolves backwards until preserved peach halves metamorphose into maple leaves. However, it is in her poem “Pears,” where the “I” becomes less accentuated, that Wakoski’s ability as a poet is highlighted. Once again the liaison between art and food is scrutinized, as is the process of aging. Using the interplay between beauty, maturation, and decay, she evokes both affirmation and a subtle ambivalence in her rendering of the pear as body.
Other poems where Wakoski’s dexterity is evident, particularly in her investigation of ambivalence, are “The Fear of Fat Children” and “Pamela’s Green Tomato Pie.” There are moments, however, when she becomes too plaintive, as in her long, ambitious poem “Perfume,” which contains a tirade against Terry Gross of NPR. The harangue is threaded through each section, almost as a parenthetical, and the poem, and reader, suffers because of it.
In the finale of the book, Wakoski continues her Greed series. “Greed, Part 14: The Greed for Purity” is an aggregate of gold: yellow tomatoes, goldfinches, the gold of Medea’s gaze, carp, fool’s gold, coins, sunlight; these images are woven through the poems like metallic thread, stitching the mythic with the personal. The persona of Diana inhabits these poems, weaving her way through each poem in various guises like the coil of a green serpent that becomes a scarf of gold. The main theme is alchemy: the transformation of lead into gold; but also the reverse conversion of “wine now labeled to ferment into vinegar,” and the oxidation of chocolate--both as metaphors for mortality. Always present in Wakoski’s work are these dual transactions: the way the body becomes tarnished, then needs to be burnished by human hands to restore its sheen--“this gold will never lose its lustre, despite purloin or misuse”; and its contrapuntal-- “the gold I was polishing was not real gold.” Although the quest, not the conquest, is what thrusts Wakoski’s work, it is important to note that the book ends on a bellnote of rejuvenation through fire and morning light.
October 6, 2008
i finished this yesterday even though half-way through i realized i had actually read it three years ago when i was a freshman in college.
this isn't in the collection, but its my favorite poem by her:
http://allhailwest.livejournal.com/16...
this isn't in the collection, but its my favorite poem by her:
http://allhailwest.livejournal.com/16...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews