pokkoli

Houston poet, Randall Watson, editor of "The Weight of Addition" led a poetry workshop at Centro Pokkoli in May 2006. Among the participants were Mutabilis publisher Carolyn Florek, and Houston poet Maryke Cramerus,included in this new anthology.

A note from the publisher:

The Weight of Addition, an anthology of Texas Poetry is our fourth and newest title. In this new collection, Randall Watson has thoughtfully brought together the work of 118 poets connected to Texas by heritage and/​or residence, or by coming here for a time, often to teach, contributing remarkably to our evolving poetry community. With The Weight of Addition, an Anthology of Texas Poetry, it is our continuing mission to document the rich and diverse work that is being created here.

Randy writes in his introduction, "It is my intention, then that the title, The Weight of Addition, should suggest the depth and range of the work that appears here."

He goes on to conclude, " . . . --we have the poems themselves: each a sign and a revelation of our uncommon lives . . . each an artifact of the spirit, of the inner life with its mass and fluidity, . . . each an addition and a weight--humane and troubled and hopeful and necessary--a mirror in which we might discover not just those things that distinguish us, but those that identify us, that connect us, individually, in what might be called our mutuality, our belonging."

excerpt from “Hooked On Octopus in Molyvos” ,
by Ronna Walsh, appearing in Greece, A Love Story

Sometimes if you chew an octopus tentacle just so, you can loosen a sucker from its skin. You can toss it around in your mouth, as you would a Jujubee, and maybe slip your tongue into it as you would a back molar. You may bite into it hesitatingly, because you don't like the thought of eating something akin to an orifice. It chews like the rest of the tentacle, resistant but ultimately pliant, and delicious-so delicious!--and you are relieved….
The ohtapodi that arrive by cart in front of The Captain's Table–a typically small restaurant toward the far end of Molyvos's modest harbor–are big even by my chef standards, with heads the size of Yukon potatoes and, held aloft, tentacles falling seventeen inches toward the ground. Like most of the octopuses found around Greece, these are mud brown, matching the sea rocks they cleverly hide between. They appear a mottled dusty purple held against the Mediterranean sky. Their eyes like glossy white marbles bulge from the sides of their heads, only slightly bigger than the biggest sucker, which are also, underneath a translucent sheath of skin, round and stark white. Each tentacle wields about seventy-five pairs of suckers, lined in symmetrical double rows and progressively shrinking in size from the octopus' head to the straw-thin tip. Tentacles may occasionally contort like a broken bone or twist like licorice, and grow fat and thin alternately. Like a tree's rings, the size and shape of an octopus' tentacles document a history of environmental change. When the cephalopod loses part of a tentacle in a mishap or fierce contest with death, it grows back like hair after chemotherapy. The regenerated part inevitably looks different and weaker. But it crisps up nicely on the grill.

Ronna Welsh has cooked professionally for over twelve years, alternately as executive chef and pastry chef in various New York City restaurants, as well as in restaurants, pastry shops, on farms, and in homes in France, Spain, Greece, and Sicily. She is currently writing a book about her travels cooking abroad.