David Shapiro 2010

Welcome to this years Thanksgiving Menu Poem

Hello and thank you for coming to this years Thanksgiving poem menu. This year we are honoring David Shapiro with a truly experimental dinner, a meal made up of different courses of dessert items. This may sound weird, but as this is set up, it would act very nicely as a full meal. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed putting this together.

This has been a real honor to work with Mr. Shapiro in mind. He is so very influential to everything I seem to understand / admire / embody as art, it is hard to extricate what it is in my memories of what comes from him and what flows through him. Like one wondering if the fun from a cherry comes from the red color or the unique taste. And it was this quick, poorly developed metaphor that toddled it’s way on towards the notion to have a full seven-course meal consisting solely of dessert. I have never had the occasion to do such a thing, a full dinner of dessert, as there is little call for it. This is exactly why this is perfect for David Shapiro. I am a trained chef and I have the ability to prepare this meal but I do have to say that if he came to my home, I would, of course, cook him a fine meal of vegetables and other common comestibles. But for poetry, a paper plate, and a paper soup, why not?

There is a wonderful story that David once played violin for John Lennon. David is an accomplished violinist and this must have been quite the treat to play music for one who has reached the souls of so many. And it is in this spirit that this dinner menu came about, David emailed me to ask if I would do one for him. And I can tell you; it was a happy thing to receive that request! I love David and his poems, in that way one loves and sees John Lennon’s body of work. In the making of this work, I went at it with the glee I can only imagine he played his violin. 

Be sure to come back next year! Hurray and thanks! 

Read below or read the PDF HERE

Love, Geoffrey Gatza

PS: There is a fun interview with Kent Johnson, Thanksgiving Dinner Menu 2004 Guest of Honor, in Jacket http://jacketmagazine.com/37/iv-shapiro-d-ivb-kent.shtml