ANNOUNCEMENT!!
Two chances to join Open Link Live (OLN LIVE) this month:
Thursday, November 16th from 3 to 4 PM EST and Saturday, November 18th, from 10 to 11 AM EST. **If you’re not in Boston’s EST time zone and wonder what time these OLN LIVE sessions run where you live, go to https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter. To participate in OLN LIVE, simply click on the link that will be provided and join us with video and audio. Read a poem of your choice or just come to listen. The more the merrier!
*** NOTE: You may still post ONE poem as usual to OLN, even if you do not join us live.

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¡Hola, amigos! Bienvenido a Tuesday Poetics. This is Melissa from Mom With a Blog. Yesterday was my birthday. Happy late birthday to me.🎂🎉

Did you know today is Spicy Guacamole Day? Neither did I. Until now. (Because in the US, we live to slap holiday labels on every single day of the year.) Spicy guacamole is also a topic that has never been covered here at dVerse…until now!

“National Spicy Guacamole Day, we’re here specifically for the extra kick that goes with adding chile peppers to that same green stuff.” (Source)

Interesting facts:

• Archaeologists have traced the avocado plant to 750 B.C. in what would later become Mexico and South America, laying the foundations for the dish.
• Popular chain, Chipotle, opened its first restaurant (complete with their legendary guacamole) in 1993 in Denver, CO.
• The U.S., Canada, and Mexico entered into the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, prompting the U.S. to quickly lift restrictions on avocado imports.
• Jalapeño and Serrano are the best peppers to use to make your spicy guacamole.
• Spicy Guacamole Day is not to be confused with Guacamole Day. That’s its own holiday, in September. (Darn, we missed it.)

Here’s a recipe for Spicy Guacamole.

Be inspired by some avocado / guacamole poetry:

“A Supermarket in California” by Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
         In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
         What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

         I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
         I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
         I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
         We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

         Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
         (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
         Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
         Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
         Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

(from Collected Poems 1947-1980, Copyright © 1984 by Allen Ginsberg)

“Afterword” by Desirée Alvarez

Chile, chocolate, coyote, guacamole, mezcal, peyote,
tomato, ocelot, tequila—the words survive months of siege,
240,000 dead in Tenochtitlan. The Place of Herons,
a place of whiteness, did not survive. Duende, a tiny face
in a calla lily, survived. A bowl decorated with scorpion
and pelican survived. Clay faces full of shadow. Sculptors
who understood light, how it addresses the afterlife,
expecting a great dark to fall.

(from Poetry Magazine, April 2019)

“For the Love of Avocados” by Diane Lockward

I sent him from home hardly more than a child.
Years later, he came back loving avocados.
In the distant kitchen where he'd flipped burgers
and tossed salads, he'd mastered how to prepare

the pear-shaped fruit. He took a knife and plied
his way into the thick skin with a bravado
and gentleness I'd never seen in him. He nudged
the halves apart, grabbed a teaspoon and carefully

eased out the heart, holding it as if it were fragile.
He took one half, then the other of the armadillo-
hided fruit and slid his spoon where flesh edged
against skin, working it under and around, sparing

the edible pulp. An artist working at an easel,
he filled the center holes with chopped tomatoes.
The broken pieces, made whole again, merged
into two reconstructed hearts, a delicate and rare

surgery. My boy who'd gone away angry and wild
had somehow learned how to unclose
what had once been shut tight, how to urge
out the stony heart and handle it with care.

Beneath the rind he'd grown as tender and mild
as that avocado, its rubies nestled in peridot,
our forks slipping into the buttery texture
of unfamiliar joy, two halves of what we shared.

(from The Uneaten Carrots of Atonement, Wind Publications, Copyright © 2016 by Diane Lockward)

Okay, enough avocado hullabaloo. Your poetic prompt for today (it doesn’t cost extra!) is as follows: write a poem (probably about guacamole, maybe?) using a mixture of at least four of the following key words: avocado, bunch, chop, cilantro, coriander, cumin, finely, fork, jalapeño, kosher, lime, mash, onion, pepper, raw, red, ripe, salt, seeds, serrano, shell, smoky, spice, squeeze, tomato, white, yellow. Everything else is up to you!

If you’re new, here is how to join us:

• Write a poem in response to the prompt.
• Enter your name and a link directly to the post containing your poem into Mr. Linky. Remember to check the box to accept use/privacy policy.
• Read other poets’ work as they enter their links into Mr. Linky. Check back as more will be added.
• Please link back to dVerse from your post.
• Have a wonderful time!🎉