EarLoved reading The Hungry Ear, Poems of Food & Drink edited by Kevin Young. This book does something I've been saying poetry should do: present around a subject of study. This could be the way into non-poetry-readers hearts and minds. I mean, who doesn't know a foodie they can give this book to?

Scientists would likely love science poems. Artists would likely love a collection of ekphrastic poetry, welders would love poems about welding. And foodies would love poems about food. Because they love to eulogize food. And bingo! Poets eulogize stuff. Foodies would love to dig deeper into the nature of food with this book, love to think beyond the cookbook, beyond essays about food or cultural food studies. This book is full of (figuratively) juicy little spirituals about food.

Poetry can spread if the gifts of poetry are presented around a subject.

I did wonder about the order of the poems. You'd find three onion poems in a row. I can't decid whether or not that was a good thing (variations on an onion) or too much onion (the poems weren't stirred up enough).

But there are many beautiful poems here, many new to me (Joy Harjo's ode to the kitchen table "Perhaps the World Ends Here") and some old favorites (Tom Lux's "Refrigerator, 1957" to William Carlos Williams' "This is Just to Say"). My favorite section was one called Short Orders about restaurant food.