The Word Plum by Helen Chasin

The Word Plum

by Helen Chasin

The word plum is delicious

pour and push, luxury of

self-love, and savoring murmur

full in the mouth and falling

like fruit

taut skin

pierced, bitten, provoked into

juice, and tart flesh

question

and reply, lip and tongue

of pleasure.

This poem appeared in the 1968 collection Coming Close and Other Poems, which was published as the winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets of that year. The series publishes a poet's first book and uses, of course, the Yale University Press.

A few of the poems I have posted lately have been a bit grim, even if they end with a little positivity, so today I very purposefully went for a poem with nothing but the joy of language and food.

Anyone reading this poem will experience the sounds, and the word play creates part of the reason that people love poetry.

A few examples include consonance (self, full), assonance (luxury, murmur), alliteration (plum, pour, push), and even slant rhyme (taut, tart). However, almost every word in this poem connects to at least one other word as far as sound.

Even if you do not consciously register these sounds, your brain does and your brain enjoys them. Word play stimulates parts of our brain that help with processing information and memory, and actually improves our mental flexibility, which helps to keep our brains young and working properly.

As far as content, the end of the poem, while continuing the exquisite language, brings us the experience of eating:

pierced, bitten, provoked into

juice, and tart flesh

question

and reply, lip and tongue

of pleasure.

Plums, like many fruits, do become juice in our mouths (and dripping down our chins) for the most part, and that is very much part of the joy of eating fruit. It is not just the squealing of hunger, but the feel of the fruit in our mouths and on our lips. Reading this poem made me recall a particularly arduous hike and the pleasure of taking a break for lunch and eating an orange. That first bite made the summer heat seem to disappear.

Chasin died in 2015. Her poetry, unfortunately, does not have much of an online presence, but you can read another of her poems at Blue Ridge Journal. The poem there, "Joy Sonnet in a Random Universe," is all word play and is as equally delightful as "The Word Plum."