Recipe, Memory, Flavor…Poetry

A Vagabond Voices living and writing prompt.

What is your flavor past and present? The crush of summer berry juices ecaping reality? Or sweet granular dissolving ever into something sour? Perhaps crusted, and seared. Or sifted as the flour over an old woman’s skin. Or the simple, perfume of your parents’ coffee they way they drank it back in the old world, when you were a small and hungry and the world smelled of something new bursting from the oven.

My invitation to you: find a recipe from your past, a memory, a feeling…

Mix, shake, stir, create and bring us your dish or drink, or poem…collage, musings, ramblings.

Your life and memory has flavors only you know.

The Book Behind the Prompt.

Yes, there is always a book. we are reading Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris.

Each month, we pull inspiration from our reading. And here, I was intrigued by the way, even in the first pages of the novel, we are introduced to an album passed down from mother to daughter…

Not quite a journal, not quite a scrapbook, the life of this mysterious mother is marked out in musings, recipes, secret languages…

Food and flavor are ever-present in this novel. As the plot unfurls and we learn the wartime family secrets, we cannot help but feel present.

At one point in the novel, a revelation unfolds in the middle of a recipe scribbled in old blue ink…

What are the flavors from your life?

Bringing food and flavor to your writing helps you and your reader experience your story…physically.

Besides, the flavors we grew up with are always linked to memory.

It doesn’t matter if it seems common to you. Or simple. If a food or memory is something you took for granted at one point in your life…perhaps that is just the thing to write about.

Here, in our Vagabond Community, we are sprinkled all over the globe. No two of our paths will be the same.

Are you a Vagabond Too? Write with us.

This is a space for wandering souls. For multilingual writers. For people who have lived in more than one place…and continue to do so in their hearts.

If you’d like to write for Vagabond Voices, feel free to get in touch here with your Medium handle. Let me know a bit about yourself, why you think your work would be a good fit. And let me know if you have a story or draft in mind.

If you’d like to keep up to speed on writing prompts and printables, book club picks and the occasional live event, you can sign up for the newsletter here.

Vagabond Stories…

By Carlos Garbiras — What can I say? A beautiful and real story about leaving one life behind, starting another. For everyone who knows what this is like…

By Lisa Bolin — Travel to another place…and another time.

By Pablo Pereyra — a haunting look at invisible cities, a dream in prose and poetry.

By Mary McGrath — A story and thoughts on publishing in our times — from someone who knows a thing or two about the industry.

And a few stories from some authors I love to read — I think you might not want to miss these:

Here is Jonah Lightwhale with an illustration of the strong response we can feel when we read writing that holds memories, flavors, feeling…

And here is another translation by Joe Váradi. This time it will allow you to experience work by Hungarian artist, musician-poet, Péter Závada.

Finally, Somsubhra Banerjee published his ebook in January, but I only got my copy this week. It’s a collection of Haibuns on the theme of reminiscence. The poems are illustrated by Lubna Yusuf. There’s something very satisfying reading this one in short bits. And the illustrations just brighten the experience.

Thanks for reading! I wish you plenty of happy writing, recipes and remembering…