From Plate to Page: Intersections of Food and Poetry 

by Kashiana Singh, NCPS President

Food and poetry serve as vessels for memory, culture, and connection. Like a shared meal, poetry nourishes the soul, gathers breath, quiets noise, and invites reflection. Over the centuries, poetry has been compared to prayer and food to meditation—both centering us in our histories, cultures, and communities. 

The physical body is a site of memory. What we eat, how we prepare it, and whom we share it with become imprints of identity. The act of eating is tied to survival, ritual, and lineage. As Li-Young Lee writes in Persimmons, “Some things never leave a person: scent of the hair of one you love, the texture of persimmons, in your palm, the ripe weight.” Food, like poetry, lingers—on the tongue, in the body, and across generations. It carries longing and belonging, marking the contours of identity, migration, and heritage. 

I, too, carry my geopolitical homes within my poetry. The intersections of food, femininity, family, politics, passion, body, economics, and memory have always been braided into my poetic practice. Food pathways, poetry as a vessel for food and vice versa, the witness of food and poetry as witness—these elements intertwine, making the dining table a sacred space where rituals of sustenance and storytelling converge. The ritual of eating reminds me of our shared humanity. Whether at a kitchen table, family dinner, or protest gathering, food transcends sustenance—it becomes a marker of relationships, identity, and memory.  

Writing with food is more than creative expression; it is an act of communal healing, carrying memory, sharing stories, and sustaining cultural continuity. Food also documents migration, hunger, and abundance. It speaks of colonization, faith, and family. It mirrors social justice issues—labor, sustainability, health, and inequity. Poets expose the fragility of sustenance, the weight of scarcity, and the resilience of survival. As National Poetry Month approaches in April, I invite poets to explore food’s role in their lives—how it connects to resistance, family, identity, and survival.  

Like Joy Harjo in Perhaps the World Ends Here, let the kitchen table become a place to reflect on the past, examine the present, and imagine the future. In uncertain times, poetry is the poet’s opportunity to speak, sense, and sensitize. Much like a knife drawn close to the bone, poetry and food cut to the essence of what sustains us.  

Let us gather at the table—both literal and literary—to share nourishment, find strength in the ritual, and heal through the stories we tell. Let us use poetry to remember where we’ve come from and what we’ll carry forward.