Blount, Roy Jr.

United States, (b. 1941)

Hymn to Ham

  1. Though Ham was one of Noah’s sons
  2. (Like Japheth), I can’t see
  3. That Ham meant any more to him
  4. Than ham has meant to me.
  5.  
  6. On Christmas Eve
  7. I said, “Yes ma’am,
  8. I do believe
  9. I’ll have more ham.
  10.  
  11. I said, “Yes ma’am,
  12. I do believe
  13. I’ll have more ham.
  14.  
  15. I said, “Yes ma’am,
  16. I do believe
  17. I’ll have more ham.
  18.  
  19. And then after dinner my uncle said he
  20. Was predominantly English but part Cherokee.
  21. “As near as I can figure,” I said, “I am
  22. An eighth Scotch-Irish and seven-eighths ham.”
  23.  
  24. Ham.
  25. My soul.
  26. I took a big hot roll,
  27. I put in some jam,
  28. And butter that melted down in with the jam,
  29. Which was blackberry jam,
  30. And a big old folded-over oozy slice of HAM . . .
  31. And my head swam.
  32.  
  33. Ham!
  34. Hit ‘me with a hammah,
  35. Wham bam bam!
  36. What good ammah
  37. Without mah ham?
  38.  
  39. Ham’s substantial, ham is fat,
  40. Ham is firm and sound.
  41. Ham’s what God was getting at
  42. When he made pigs so round.
  43.  
  44. Aunt Fay’s as big as she can be —
  45. She weighs one hundred, she must weigh three.
  46. But Fay says, “Ham! Oh Lord, praise be,
  47. Ham has never hampered me!”
  48.  
  49. Next to Mama and Daddy and Gram,
  50. We all love the family ham.
  51.  
  52. So let’s program
  53. A hymn to ham,
  54. To appetizing, filling ham.
  55. (I knew a girl named Willingham.)
  56. And after that we’ll all go cram
  57. Ourselves from teeth to diaphragm
  58. Full of ham.

© Roy Blount, Jr.. One Fell Soup, or I’m Just a Bug on the Windshiels of Life. Atlantic Monthly Press, Little Brown & Co., 1967.

Song to Bacon

  1. Consumer groups have gone and taken
  2. Some of the savor out of bacon.
  3. Protein-per-penny in bacon, they say,
  4. Equals needles-per-square-inch of hay.
  5. Well, I know, after cooking all
  6. That’s left to eat is mighty small
  7. (You also get a lot of lossage
  8. In life, romance, and country sausage),
  9. And I will vote for making it cheaper,
  10. Wider, longer, leaner, deeper,
  11. But let’s not throw the baby, please,
  12. Out with the (visual rhyme here) grease.
  13. There’s nothing crumbles like bacon still,
  14. And I don’t think there ever will
  15. Be anything, whate’er you use
  16. For meat, that chews like bacon chews.
  17. And also: I wish these groups would tell
  18. Me whether they counted in the smell.
  19. The smell of it cooking’s worth $2.1O a pound.
  20. And howbout the sound?

© Roy Blount, Jr.. One Fell Soup, or I’m Just a Bug on the Windshiels of Life. Atlantic Monthly Press, Little Brown & Co., 1967.

Song to Pig Knuckles

  1. Sweet though be the pig that suckles,
  2. Give me one with ample knuckles.
  3. Doctor, broker, teacher, lawyer
  4. All say, “Knucks, it’s good to gnawyer.”
  5. When your fighting spirit buckles,
  6. Buck it up with meat of knuckles.

© Roy Blount, Jr.. Save Room for Pie: Food Songs and Chewy Ruminations. New York: Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2016).

Song to Barbecue Sauce

  1. Hot and sweet and red and greasy,
  2. I could eat a gallon easy:
  3. Barbecue sauce!
  4. Lay it on, hoss.
  5.  
  6. Nothing is dross
  7. Under barbecue sauce.
  8.  
  9. Brush it on chicken, slosh it on pork,
  10. Eat it with fingers, not with a fork.
  11. I could eat barbecued turtle or squash-
  12. I could eat tar paper cooked and awash
  13. In barbecue sauce.
  14.  
  15. I’d eat Spanish moss
  16. With barbecue sauce.
  17.  
  18. Hear this from Evelyn Billiken Husky,
  19. Formerly Evelyn B. of Sandusky:
  20. “Ever since locating down in the South,
  21. I have had barbecue sauce on my mouth.”
  22.  
  23. Nothing can gloss
  24. Over barbecue sauce.

© Roy Blount, Jr.. Save Room for Pie: Food Songs and Chewy Ruminations. New York: Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2016).

Song to Grease

  1. I feel that I will never cease
  2. To hold in admiration grease.
  3. It’s grease makes frying things so crackly,
  4. During and after. Think how slackly
  5. Bacon lies before its grease
  6. Effusively secures release.
  7. Then that same grease protects the eggs
  8. From hard burnt ruin. Grease! It begs
  9. Comparison to that old stone
  10. That turned base metals gold. The on-
  11. Ly thing that grease won’t do with food
  12.  
  13. Is make it evanesce once chewed.
  14. In fact grease lends a certain weight
  15. That makes it clear that you just ate
  16. Something solid. Something thick.
  17. Something like das Ding an sich.
  18. This firm substantiation is al-
  19. Lied directly with the sizzle.
  20. Oh when our joints refuse to function,
  21. When we stand in need of unction,
  22. Bring us two pork chops apiece
  23. A skillet, lots of room, and grease.
  24.  
  25. Though Batter’s great and Fire is too,
  26. And so, if you can Fry, are You,
  27. What lubricates and crisps at once-
  28. That’s Grease-makes all the difference.

© Roy Blount, Jr.. Save Room for Pie: Food Songs and Chewy Ruminations. New York: Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2016).

About the Poet

Roy Blount, Jr. (b. 1941), Southern US humorist, sportswriter, novelist, poet, performer, lecturer and dramatist. Raised in Decatur, Georgia, Blount received a bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt and a master’s degree from Harvard.

Blount has been a writer and editor for Sports Illustrated (1968-1975, and a contributing editor to The Atlantic Monthly (1981-present) and a recurring guest on Minnesota Public Radio’s A Prairie Home Companion. [DES-6/03]

Additional Information:

http://www.royblountjr.com/

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