[E. Shaun Russell]

I like it, though I have the same reservation about the title as others. Yet it's important to have a title like that, at least, given the beneath-the-surface content.

I'm not usually a fan of guessing the identity of the poet (perhaps because I'm so damn lousy at it), but I will say that it has a Julie Steiner-esque tone.

Either way, I echo what others said about this being a very strong start to the bakeoff.

[Edmund Conti]

I like the soft off-rhyme of me and savory. Kind of relaxes you to start and then throws a sneak punch at the end.

Nice kickoff. (What made me think I could compete?)

[Mary Meriam]

I know he cooks, so I'm going to guess Michael Cantor. Good job getting the names of spices to fit in the IP rack. I love the word Olēka and the epigraph, though it might not quite work for this poem. The final couplet is a winner.

[Gillie Chriosd]

Originally Posted by Orwn Acra

Why, I ask the empty room, did the sonneteer ruin the ambiguity and exotic quality of the title, which sounds like a spice, by explaining it? Otherwise, I rather like it though there is the sense each line could do more, or sound fresher.

I second your first point. Leaving "Oleka," a "spice" no one has ever heard of, as a mystery presents the chance to make a few readers go hunting. "After an entry in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows" seems to me a better possibility for the subtitle / epigraph.

On the second point, I beg to differ. The poem isn't about "freshness," it's about blandness that eventually amounts to a forgettable (forgotten) tedium. The poem needs a few surprises -- and has them, e.g. "the cream of tartar gathers dust," "a chocolate cardamom souffle" -- but it doesn't need to bash the reader over the head with hard diction or complex syntax. Its lightness demands a looseness, even a flatness, an ease with reading and navigating the lines.

In this sense, the preference for end-stopping is right, as is the self-sufficiency of the complementary first and last lines. The quatrains do what quatrains should, the couplet what it should. The sonnet is taking advantage of the orthodoxy of sonnets. Except for "I am a disgrace / to cookery," the turns feel tame. The poem numbs you out with this flatness, then jolts you awake with the last line's "poison" and pun.

If there's something to criticize, I think, it's how the tameness can seem a bit too rhetorically calculated. "And if, at times" ... "So," ... "-- as they must --" ... "No one to ... no one to": you can feel the poem steering you through the argument, almost insisting on it. This closes off the reader's imaginative space.

For this reason, I'd be a bit happier with sensory descriptions of fewer spices, rather than lists and pairs of names. Reopen my ability to imagine my way into that kitchen.

Though, if the poem's about the loss of memory, is closing off imaginative space a good thing? Perhaps only personal taste can answer this. Do you prefer a poem that enacts or a poem that makes you enact?

[Gillie Chriosd]

P.S. The poem is about loss and regret and mortality and cookery. Why do we need separate these things? Doesn't the poem's success lie in its ability to develop the metaphor?

[Mary McLean]

You guys crack me up, thinking it's better to make someone google such an obscure term rather than include a perfectly concise epigram. That's modern poetry alrighty. I like the epigram and the title, which I think deepens what seems superficial until the final couplet. I'm not sure how to take that couplet itself, but the ambiguity is interesting.

The IP and rhyme are deftly handled. I'd say it's a strong contender, though I think the winners tend to take a few more risks and liberties with the form. I don't have a clue who wrote it except I think it's not Susan because she is too good a cook.

[Scott Miller]

Good to be back for this wonderful event. I don't want to get into a parsing thing but maybe we can agree that the conceit of the poem concerns cooking while its meaning is something more in the vein of wistful rumination on regret, specifically the mundanity of too many days (like those minimally differentiated meals). So we have cooking imagery in the bake-off, and that's cool. Agreed?

I happened to be perusing The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows recently (maybe it was going around Facebook?). Anyway, knowing the story of this clever document meant that the whole thing felt tongue-in-cheek to me. There was no dissonance for me between the epigraph and content. If anything, the author could even add her or his own definition!

The use of "mace" is wonderful, as is "savory" for its dual purpose as both adjective and spice, not to mention how the rhyme bring it into relief. I don't really understand why "chive" and not "chives" either. But generally the list poem format is working beautifully.

I'm left a bit wanting by the couplet though. It sounds beautiful but it rings so perfectly hollow... logically, N is clearly to blame, so I immediately reject the assertion in L13 (as the author seems to intend). After that, I'm not totally clear on the last line. The wordplay on "a grain of salt" is cool but I don't know exactly what "this poison" refers to. The castigations of the spice rack? If so, is the grain of salt merely N hinting at the knowledge that (s)he is the one to blame? That's kind of a weak turn and makes the whole thing move more or less in the direction the title points us. Still, it was a lot of fun to read.

[Orwn Acra]

Originally Posted by Mary McLean

You guys crack me up, thinking it's better to make someone google such an obscure term rather than include a perfectly concise epigram. That's modern poetry alrighty.

I believe strongly in the joys of literary discovery. The epigram explains the title and tells us what the poem will be about, and this demystifies its most intriguing aspect. "After an entry in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows," as our Scottish servant of Christ suggests, would be better if the poet must include an explanation.

[Pedro Poitevin]

Smart sonnet built on a gorgeous image. I love the imagistic economy of it, how time passes (and flavor or lack thereof pass, too), and what remains is the aslant, poisonous glare of the double rack.

Pedro

[Marcia Karp]

Grey and dusty spices (is cream of tartar a spice?) might be tasteless but are not poisonous. The last minute hyperbole of poison mars the very nice moment of insight and poetic spark given by grain of salt.