The Poetry of Shuck Beans

ESSAY The Poetry of Shuck Beans Julie Dunlop WRITING A POEM IS A LOT LIKE PREPARING SHUCK BEANS—it takes time. Even poems that seem to come more quickly than others started developing earlier—maybe months or years before. Similarly, you can'tjust decide that you want shuck beans for dinner and then go buy some at a store or go out to a restaurant and order them. Shuck beans are a process. Shuck beans start with a trip to a garden or produce stand. If you see half-runners or turkey-craws, you're in luck. Move your hand through the crate of beans and search for the ones that are thick and full. I have seen the beans my grandmother's hands choose and the ones they toss aside. It is a selective process. Poems, however, start with a journey inward. Your mind moves through the collection of memories, observations, and experiences and through the infinite colors of the imagination searching for the thoughts and feelings that are thick and full. Many items that at first seem good choices will have to be scribbled out. It is a selective process. Okay, back to the beans. Once you get your beans home, the stringing begins. My grandmother and her sister laughed and laughed the first time I tried to join them in the stringing. If you pull the curly tip of the bean the right way, the string pulls right off. If not, you have a heck of a time ever getting that string off the bean. Once you've got the beans strung, then it's time to thread them. You need a thick needle and strong thread. Stick the needle through the center of the beans, one after another, until you have a strand of beans long enough to reach between your outstretched hands. Hang the strands of beans in a window. The sunlight will slowly dry them up into shriveled shells. At this point, take the beans down and store them in an airtight container until you're ready to cook them. Poems, also, require patient preparation. When all of the ideas and feelings for a poem have gathered around you, the trick is to find the perfect thread of words to pierce them at their hearts. This thread of words must also tie these feelings and thoughts together in a way that makes them stronger than their individual selves. The challenge is to 61 find a way to shrink your expression down to its most essential nature. When you have compressed your ideas and emotions into a poem, then store it in a safe place, such as a notebook. Now, when you're ready to cook the beans, don't just put them in a pot on the stove. You've got to soak them at least twelve hours. If you leave them to soak overnight, you will wake up to a pot full of beans that have expanded to full size again; they will be an unusual brownish color, though, instead of the original green. If you want to eat the beans for supper, start cooking them early in the day. Six or seven hours on high heat is enough for the beans to get done. Salt them, spoon out some of the thick, greenish-brown beans and juice, and get ready for one of the sweetest tastes of your life! Just like with the beans, thoughts and feelings in a poem require a waiting time before they are ready. Soak them in time and space; that is, leave them tucked away for at least twelve hours— maybe a day or a week! When you return to them, you will find that they have somehow changed shape, color, and texture. During the cooking time of revision, you can choose to remove, add, or change any ingredients. Like any good cook, use your intuition! Now, some will say that shuck beans aren't worth the trouble. And some people will say that they don't like the taste of shuck beans, that they wouldn't eat them if you paid them! You will hear some people say the same things about poetry—that it's...