Friday, December 1, 2017

Poetry Friday - An Ode to Potatoes and Butter


This is a potato. AKA a spud.

Happy Poetry Friday, friends! Today I have an original poem to share with you. It's the product of pure fun: two friends from Vermont College of Fine Arts (Sarah Ellis and Daphne Kalmar - both brilliant, both hugely talented, both hilarious) and I have been writing poems in response to challenges each of us set. My latest challenge to them was to write a poem about potatoes (yes, our prompts and topics are a bit idiosyncratic....) since potatoes take a starring role at both my Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner tables. Mashed potatoes with turkey and gravy, scalloped potatoes with a Christmas ham. Is there any way potatoes can be fixed that does not result in something scrumptious?

These are potatoes, mashed, with gravy. AKA yummmm.


This is a ham. AKA a good excuse for a side of little spuds.

In my poem, I've added in some butter. Thank all the gods on Olympus for potatoes and butter! Here is my poem:

A Spuds and Butter Song

Butter and spuds, spuds and butter - 
thanks to the cow, thanks  to her udder,
thanks to the dirt where the spud eyes grow, 
thanks to the farmer who, row after row,
day by day, season by season, 
tends the spuds and gives us a reason 
to love the harvest as well as the feast. 
Bless us all, both man and beast, 
bless the spuds, for which I can utter: 
"❤I love you, spuds (especially with butter!)❤️"

New potatoes. AKA spudlettes?
  
My contributions to Poetry Friday have been sporadic lately, but I'm busy writing poetry again, so all is well. I'll contribute again before Christmas rolls around; meanwhile, put the word December in your mouth and roll it around with your tongue for awhile - brrrrrrrrr, right? And isn't it nice how the word "winter" ends with that rrrrrrrr, too? Decembrrrrrrrr! Winterrrrrrrrr!!! You can almost taste the hot mulled ciderrrrrrr. 
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Today's Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted by Mary Lee Hahn, PF-organizer extraordinaire, at A YEAR OF READING. Head over there to see what other people have posted. 

28 comments:

  1. Hah! "A Spuds and Butter Song" is sending me to our fridge,
    to retrieve the baked sweet potatoes, slice open, sprinkle
    cinnamon & well. . . these lucious lines provide the rest.

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  2. Thanks for transporting me back to the time when my family ate most everything with a pat of melting butter. The best was always the boiled potatoes, smashed, with butter spreading through. Bless the spuds! (And you, too!)

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    1. I always wondered why my grandmother's food tasted better than everyone else's. Found out after I grew up that she put butter n everything - either that or bacon. Bacon in the green beans as they cooked, extra butter even on the bear-claw pastries as they warmed in the oven.

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  3. Delicious poem, Julie! Wonderful rhythms...it rolls right off the tongue.

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  4. Julie,

    Love your poem! Such fun to read.

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  5. Oh, this is so much fun -- we had Mad Libs for holiday dinners planned, but this would be SO MUCH BETTER - reading aloud ridiculous poetry on what we're about to eat - that wraps in a loving blessing as well. I really enjoyed this, thank you for sharing.

    *digs in the fridge for more leftovers*

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    1. Hope you have fun around the table with your food poems!

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  6. Ha ha ha -- such levity. Thank goodness!

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    1. Levity helps lately, that's for sure, Liz! What a world....

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  7. Yum yum yum -- potato goodness abounds. What a delightful paean to potatoes. Now I'm craving scalloped potatoes for Christmas dinner.

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  8. Udderly delightful. (Sorry - couldn't resist.)

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  9. Yum!! This poem is as delicious as mashed potatoes (with lots and lots of butter!)

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  10. Potatoes and butter, you love so true that nothing else will ever do! I love the song, and each potato pictured, just made potato soup this week, another favorite of mine. Thanks for sharing about your friend/challenges. They sound very fun!

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  11. I do love those friends, Linda, and feel lucky to have them. Potato soup - haven't had that for awhile. Maybe tomorrow night....

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  12. Unless olive oil makes more sense, I use (clarified) butter in most of my cooking, a fact I attribute to my French ancestry. :D And what is the best thing with melted butter? Baked potatoes, of course!

    Thank you for this spritely, spudly song, Julie!

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    1. And thank you, Renee for your beautiful If I Were a Blue Balloon poem in Kenn Nesbitt's One Minute Till Bedtime!

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  13. What a fun poem! Now I want to bake a potato and load it with butter. Maybe that will be dinner tonight!

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    1. Thanks, Kay. As for dinner, baked potato=good idea.

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  14. Mm, spuds and butter, what could be better?

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  15. Yummy poem and hooray for more in the weeks to come! Write on! (And please pass the potatoes and butter!!)

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