Lemon Meringue Margarita: 2014 Poetry Project

Yes, Writerly Friends, it is real. Lemon Meringue Margarita is not just a mash-up of our Day 15 Pantone® Poetry colors...

Day 15 Lemon Meringue
Pantone ®  12-0771

Day 15 Margarita
Pantone ®  14-0116

...it is an actual pie. And I have the recipe.

Find the recipe for
Refrigerator Lemon Margarita Pie
at All Recipes. (Yes, it calls for tequila.)

All this month, I invite you to write in response to a series of Pantone®  paint colors. How does the project work? Read about it here.

If the pie picture doesn't make your mouth water, Linda Baie's poem will.

County Fair

By Linda Baie

lemon meringue pie

anticipating

the knife

slipping

down

down

through the peaks oven-browned

slicing that snowy inside,

spatula lifting the piece

onto the paper plate,

the fork cutting one bite.

Mouth-melting Himalayas,

judged

best of show,

blue ribbon

for ecstasy.

Linda Baie ©All Rights Reserved

Don't you love those Himalayan peaks of meringue?

Diane Mayr's pie tells a story. Unlike wine, a good chili, and some chocolate cakes, lemon meringue pie does not age well.

Lemon Meringue Pie
by Diane Mayr

Day one:
Lemon meringue
its waves of egg white
brown and upstanding,
crust with a crunch,
lemon curd firm & tart.

Day two:
Lemon meringue
waves collapsing,
crust sodden & soggy,
its lemon weeping for
what the eater missed.

Day three:
Lemon meringue
its allure now elusive.

My lemon meringue poem isn't about pie, but it does have a little bite.

Miniature Iris

By Laura Shovan

Its leaves dagger through ground,

then parts, splits sharp green lips.

Inside a bud as big as my thumb,

mere mouthful of lemon meringue

which opens, as irises do, to show

its frothy, egg white tongue.

Spring brings us a beautiful combination of
yellow miniature irises and the purple
creeping phlox you see in the background.

I was hoping someone would write in response to Margarita, a name too tasty to resist.

Poet and geographer Michael Ratcliffe didn't let me down. He writes, “It was a bit too early on Sunday to have a margarita, so I read about the drink's history instead. Quite a fascinating and mysterious history, with no agreement on its origins. The multiple locations in which the drink was supposedly invented provided the basis for my poem. Here's what flowed:”

HER NAME WAS MARGARITA

By Michael Ratcliffe

Her name was Margarita,
and she danced atop the bar
at the Rancho La Gloria,
between Tijuana and Rosarito.
She was all the rage in Baja.

Her hair, the color of lemons,
her eyes, green as limes.
Those days with Margarita,
those were the best of times.

I saw her next in Ensenada—
Hussong’s Cantina, if I remember.
She and I danced the merengue.
When I told her that I loved her,
all she said was "de nada."

Her hair, the color of lemons,
her eyes, green as limes.
Those days with Margarita,
those were the best of times.

At Tommy’s Place in El Paso,
before I shipped out from Fort Bliss,
we drank tequila in the shadows.
They said she was a German spy.
She told me she was Swiss.

Her hair, the color of lemons,
her eyes, green as limes.
Those days with Margarita,
those were the best of times.

At the Balinese in Galveston,
she teased me with her games.
It was there she drove me crazy,
then said her name was Daisy,
and she really came from Ames.

Her hair, the color of lemons,
her eyes, green as limes.
Those days with Margarita,
those were the best of times.

Author Amok is non-alcoholic. I know you don't mind,
as long as I serve these Citrus-Iced Mock Margarita Bars
from Very Best Baking.

Has your sweet tooth had enough tang and bang after today's citrus tones? Day 16's colors are more mistletoe than lemon lime.

Day 16 Jolly Green
Pantone ®  18-6030

Day 16 Cabaret
Pantone ®  18-2140

So dig those jingle bells out of their boxes, or skip the box entirely and buck the assumption that red + green = Christmas. I can't wait to see what you come up with for tomorrow.

Poetry Festival

As promised, Poetry Friday fans...an original poem about the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.

Driving home from the poetry festival, 1996 I would like to remember this night, compel my mind to hoard sounds, images. But Route 80 is featureless, dark and nothing more. I wish for some apparition, a fire in the sky, perhaps the carcass of an animal strewn across the road, its blood flashing in snapshots. This night, when words reached behind my eyes like sea water, into my throat like desert air, this night should be remembered. My mother, with me big in her belly, drove some other featureless highway, the rest of the world home in bed. A voice said, “Pull over.” And she did. Even though she was alone, she listened to that voice, and watched from the shoulder. A darkened car hurtled the wrong way, weaving the road towards her and me. Tonight I say, speak to me, Voice, so I will remember. But I am closer to home with every mile, knowing this drive will be forgotten, not even hearing the radio drone. Words burn in my mind. There is no room for road, or darkness, or music. A voice I recognize now, as my own, has whispered, Mother, blood, belly. Carcass, car, desert. These words anchor themselves just long enough for me to write them here. Published in Paterson Literary Review #29, 2000

This Jersey Girl will be heading home first thing Friday morning to spend two days at the festival. Can't go to this year's festival? Stop by next week for reactions, poetic postcards, photos, and interviews with poets and festival staff.

Poetry Friday Writing Exercise

Writing Exercise (Recommended for All Ages) Narrative Poems Poems can tell a story just as well as fiction can. A poem is a great form for capturing a quick episode (like the Galway Kinnell poem, “The Sow Piglet’s Escape” http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2005/02/01) or a even swash-buckling epic like “The Highwayman.” http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/highwayman-orig.html Let’s stick with the theme of loss, which comes up in both poems. Write a narrative poem about something you lost. It can be a pet, a friend, your glasses. Did you find it again? Think about showing (not telling) how you feel about the thing you lost. Another poem on this theme to share with kids is (frequent Dodge Festival reader) Naomi Shihab Nye’s “The Lost Parrot.” (I was not able to find it online, but it is in her collection, Words Under the Words.)