Poems by Jeremy Radin & Cocktails of Comfort
Image from Crazyhorse
Poems: “God Belly” & “Carl’s Jr.”
Reading Jeremy Radin’s poetry is a complicated artisanal recipe that yields rewarding and superior results, a banquet that feeds something for which you didn’t know you hungered. “Belly God” and “Carl’s Jr.” are both this sort of experience, each exploring food, love and anger, and the speaker’s hindsight-acknowledgement that admits complicity but not guilt. These poems trace the emotional bread crumb trail from effect backwards to seek the powerful, and ravenous, root cause of the feeling or moment presented. Published in Crazyhorse, Issue 98, both call for food imagery, an ounce or two of compassion, a mixing bowl, and a dash of self-reflective admission.
Tireless leviathan, nectar
smeared across your eyes, bless
each season shoveled into you—
winter cinnamon, syrups of spring.-from “Belly God”
The language of “Belly God” rings sumptuous like a dinner bell. The poem is a feast of words that intimates, in its scant eighty-three words, grand and visceral images that have sweep and force, animating a god of comfort we should all be familiar with. In the poem, nectar is smeared, love is thundered against, seasons are shoveled, and all of the language is working to aggrandize the Belly God while simultaneously concealing the poem’s speaker until the very last, when they claim the God as their agent. “My motherking,” the speaker says, “my gentle friend, my everhunger, what have you done that I did not beg you to do?”
The poem has an exuberance at first blush, a bold celebratory and bon vivant canter that hides a bitterness beneath the speaker’s saccharine tone of adoration. Small words and phrases peek through the grandiosity to admit complicity, willingness. “Thunder against love,” the speaker commands, “Portion for me these units of absence.” In a way, the poem is a meditation on self-indulgence as a distraction from sadness and loneliness. It carves a space that extols self-gratification at first but invites the reader to implicate themselves, but to shame; instead, the poem creates a moment from which we can reflect on our own Belly God, and respect its purpose.
we pull up—tonight it’s Dean & I—to
the Carl’s Jr. & I lean over him to place my order:
One Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger, one Famous
Star with cheese, chicken strips, extra large curly fries,
extra large Oreo sha- & then he hits the gas & pulls
away from the talk-box, right in the middle of
my order & he says No way, fool, I’m not letting you
do that to yourself, & though I must laugh it off I am
seething, I am furious, furious as a mastiff, eater
of angers, plague of locusts craving some kind
of whatever-from “Carl’s Jr.”
“Carl’s Jr.” is another kind of soul-searching exploration that not only reveals and admits but answers. Narrative in nature, the speaker recalls a moment of their youth when a close friend stopped the speaker from over-eating at a fast-food drive-through. “He hits the gas,” the speaker tells us,” & pulls away from the talk-box, right in the middle of my order & he says No way, fool, I’m not letting you do that to yourself” which begins the process of acknowledging the pain of being young and feeling unloved, or underloved, and how food is used to fill a void left by loneliness and sadness. “You all have girlfriends,” the speaker thinks but doesn’t say to their friend, “you’ll all marry them—this is it for me.”
The poem uses punctuation in an interesting way, too. Ampersands replace every use of “and” which, on the page, bring the words closer together which works to bring us, and the speaker, closer to the meaning of the words and the poem’s content. Em dashes (—) show up when the speaker’s friend—Dean—arrives in the poem and continue to appear from then on to separate from the narrative painful and self-destructive admissions, the dashes working in the opposite way as the ampersands to divide and separate, to distance. The most impactful formal decision going on in the poem is that it’s two sentences long: one five-hundred-word rhetorical question followed by an eight-word admission as answer—a heart-breaking statement that calms the tumultuous push & pull of the poem into a testimony separated from the feeling that created it.
Motherking and Yearning & All
The two cocktails this week are flavor profiles dedicated each to their respective inspirations: Motherking from “Belly God” and Yearning & All from “Carl’s Jr.” Both derive their ingredients from the bold, decisive language and imagery from their respective inspirations, with each cocktail’s build and form meant to represent the poems themselves. One is dense and rich while the other is complicated and clear.
Cocktail: Motherking
Thunder against love, against
love making your dedicated weather.
Portion for me these units
of absence: pecan, pumpkin,butterscotch cream. Imagine trying
to imagine a power beyond you,
room of rooms, low & unmollified
lord. Eat the coming summer next—-from “Belly God”
Motherking is a flip build that’s decadent and unmollified with rich flavors that envelope the pallet. It’s comfort, sweet and bold, in a glass. This hug of a drink is made with a whole egg (yolk and all), which is traditional for a flip style cocktail, and includes two kinds of whiskey, pecan orgeat, and a burnt sugar syrup.
Motherking
1oz Bourbon
1oz American Rye Whiskey
0.5oz Pecan Orgeat*
0.5oz Burnt Sugar Syrup**
0.5oz Sweetened, Condensed Milk
10 Drops Saline (20% — or a pinch of salt)
1 Whole Egg
Bitters for garnish
Add all of the ingredients together, except for the bitters; shake without ice for 15 seconds to emulsify the egg. Add ice and shake again for 15 more seconds.
Double strain into a coupe glass and let settle for a minute or two.
Place a few drops of bitters (Peychaud’s or Angostura) on the foamed top and use a tooth pick to pull a design through the drops.
Note: * Toast 1/4c of pecans in a pan over medium low heat until fragrant and toasted. Transfer to a blender and add 1/2c water. Pulse until pecans are finely chopped, then blend for two minutes then strain liquid through a cheese cloth or nut bag. In a saucepan, combine the pecan liquid and 4oz of white sugar over medium-low heat without boiling until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add 0.5oz of Bourbon; store in the refrigerator.
** On the stove, place 1/4c white sugar in a pan over medium heat. Stir until sugar begins to melt into a toffee brown puddle and then add 1/3c hot water. BE CAREFUL, the water will steam. Stir continuously until water and browned sugar are incorporated.
Cocktail: Yearning & All
I want what I want, & yours is the wrong kind, I am
meant to be this thing of locust yearning & all that
makes me me is that I can’t—I won’t—how can I
say it, fool that I am, how can I make you understand?-from “Carl’s Jr.”
Yearning & All is a milk clarified cocktail built with French fry infused whisky, cherry Coke, a spiced syrup, Cherry Heering, and lemon that’s clarified with melted vanilla milkshake. The flavor is bright with dark fruity notes and a hint of salt on the middle pallet from the French fries. The texture is velvety smooth from the milkshake which leaves the drink crystal clear.
Yearning & All
3oz of French Fry Infused Whisky* (Crown Royal or Jameson)
1.5oz Cherry Heering
0.5oz Spiced Syrup**
1oz Lemon
3.5oz Cherry Coke
2oz Melted Vanilla Milkshake
In one container, add all of the ingredients together except for the melted milkshake.
In another container, large enough to hold everything, add the melted milkshake.
Pour the alcohol mix into the melted milkshake and give a quick stir; place in fridge for at least 6 hours and up to 48.
Pour separated mix through a coffee filter over a day to strain; serve over ice.