Thanksgiving Nightmare
By: Julia Vinograd
I am the turkey, plucked, gutted, stuffed with breadcrumbs and walnuts from gullet to butt, greased for the oven. My skin spiced to turn crisp brittle brown slowly. I know it’s just a nightmare, part of me roasts and part of me tells the flames they’re not real except I can’t say anything past the apple in my mouth and the sharp turning iron spit. Steam and the flavor of screams sinking belly inward. I am the turkey to feed everyone I love. Love is the nightmare. There are so many people I love around the table smelling me roasting, telling each other about me, about love, about all I’ve done for them. I can hear them in the oven, their voices caressing my name. I can’t deny them anything. My body becomes soft and juicy, I’m nearly done… I am the turkey to feed everyone I love when the oven door opens. All their sweet faces look at me, I’m finally ready for them. The raised knife. Love.
You can find the poetic works of Julia Vinograd at Zeitgeist Press.
Soon you can hear Julia, David Lerner, Vampyre Mike Cassell, and a potpourri of Babarian readings via the following never-heard-before audio recordings that will be offered as thank-you gifts for your tax-deductible donation in support of the in-progress feature documentary, Julia Vinograd: Between Spirit and Stone. Â
• An entire evening of Café Babar readings featuring 15 poets recorded on June 23, 1988. Â
• Poet Bucky Sinister reading his essay about the Café Babar, Julia Vinograd, Poetry Heckler from Our Lady of Telegraph Avenue: Tributes to Julia Vinograd (Zeitgeist Press). Â
• Julia reciting 14 poems from The Book of Jerusalem that director Ken Paul Rosenthal recorded in her apartment in 1991. Â
These audio confections will sweeten your ears on Giving Tuesday, November 28, 2023 via the film’s website.
Stay tuned to Poetic Outlaws for the link soon!
With this poem Julia Vinograd can easily bring to the table the dynamics in the argument about the ethics of killing and eating what was once alive. But I'd rather do as the Natives did after a kill: thank the animal for their generous sacrifice and be grateful for the food that will feed me and those whom I love.
Julia was well-known for her voracious appetite and lack of table manners (the roots of which will be explored in the documentary I'm making about her). One of the film's interviewees offered this poem as an example of Julia's giving nature. To me, this poem feels like a willingness to be dug into the way she digs food herself. As usual, I'm so grateful to the Poetic Outlaws community for the breadth of thoughtful reflections and ruminations all of you share in response to the artists presented in this forum!