If food is poetry, is not poetry also food?

Host: The evening settled like silk over the city, soft and slow, as if the world itself was holding its breath before nightfall. Inside a dimly lit restaurant tucked between forgotten bookshops, two souls sat by the window — their table small, their conversation larger than the room could contain. The scent of basil, garlic, and faint wine hung in the air, mingling with the low hum of a jazz piano drifting from the corner.

Jack leaned back, one hand wrapped around his glass, his grey eyes glinting in the amber light. Jeeny, across from him, rested her chin in her hand, her dark hair falling over her shoulder like spilled ink. Between them, a steaming plate of pasta sat untouched — a quiet metaphor waiting to be spoken.

Jeeny: “If food is poetry,” she began, her voice warm and slow, “is not poetry also food? Joyce Carol Oates said that once. I think she meant that both feed us — one through the body, one through the soul.”

Jack: “Or maybe she meant we’ve confused the two. People gorge on words now the way they gorge on sugar — quick, shallow, empty calories for the mind.”

Host: The light from the candle flickered between them, its flame bowing and straightening as though listening. The shadows on Jack’s face sharpened, carved by his own skepticism.

Jeeny: “You make it sound cynical. But isn’t it beautiful — that we can be nourished by words? That a line of poetry can feed the spirit as much as a meal fills the body?”

Jack: “Maybe. But a starving man can’t eat a sonnet. Try serving Yeats to someone who hasn’t eaten in three days.”

Jeeny: “That’s not the point, Jack. Physical hunger and spiritual hunger aren’t rivals. They’re companions. One feeds our flesh, the other our reason for living.”

Jack: “You ever been truly hungry, Jeeny? The kind that scrapes the inside of your ribs until thought itself becomes a luxury?”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said softly. “But hunger taught me something, too — that survival alone isn’t enough. You can fill your stomach and still starve inside.”

Host: The rain began, tapping gently against the window — tiny rhythms like the faint heartbeat of the world outside. The restaurant dimmed slightly as the streetlights flickered through the curtain of drizzle.

Jack lifted his glass, studied the reflections dancing on its surface.

Jack: “Poetry’s too indulgent for this world. You think people in warzones or sweatshops have time for metaphors?”

Jeeny: “They might not write them, but they live them. Every mother hiding her child from gunfire, every worker praying for daylight — that’s poetry in motion. Not written, but felt. Poetry is how the human spirit resists decay.”

Jack: “So now survival itself is a poem?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Life is the first poem — everything after is just interpretation.”

Host: Her words lingered in the air, fragrant as the steam rising from the plate between them. Jack’s jaw tightened; he stabbed a fork into the untouched pasta, twisting it without appetite.

Jack: “You romanticize suffering. Not everything broken is beautiful.”

Jeeny: “And you starve beauty to feed logic. Not everything practical is worth surviving for.”

Host: The jazz pianist shifted to a slower tune, each note falling like a raindrop into the heavy silence. Jeeny’s eyes glowed — deep, brown, alive — while Jack’s reflected the candle’s wavering gold.

Jeeny: “Think about it, Jack. Every culture has both — food and poetry. Why? Because both are acts of creation. To cook and to write are the same defiance: to make meaning from chaos, to turn rawness into something that sustains.”

Jack: “You make a soufflé sound like scripture.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. When a chef cooks with love, isn’t that prayer? When a poet writes truth, isn’t that offering?”

Host: Jack smirked faintly, though his eyes betrayed thought rather than mockery.

Jack: “Then why does art always seem to starve its makers? Van Gogh didn’t dine on his own verses. He died hungry.”

Jeeny: “And yet his work still feeds millions of hearts. That’s the strange economy of the soul — sometimes you feed others what you can’t afford for yourself.”

Host: Her words landed between them like a fragile truth, too gentle to challenge, too sharp to ignore. Jack set his fork down, his hand resting near the candle flame, the light trembling over his knuckles.

Jack: “So you think a poem can fill the same void as a meal?”

Jeeny: “Not the same — but a deeper one. Food ends hunger. Poetry ends emptiness.”

Jack: “You think emptiness can ever end?”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But poetry teaches us to savor it. Just as hunger makes food sacred, silence makes words divine.”

Host: A waiter passed by, setting a small basket of bread between them. The scent of rosemary and warm crust filled the air. Neither reached for it. They just watched it, as if understanding that it, too, was a metaphor — simple, essential, wordless.

Jack: “So food becomes poetry when it’s made with care. And poetry becomes food when it’s received with hunger.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Both are acts of communion — body to body, soul to soul. You chew a line of verse the same way you chew a meal: slowly, with gratitude.”

Jack: “You sound like you worship language.”

Jeeny: “And you worship reason. Maybe we’re both kneeling at different altars, praying to the same silence.”

Host: The rain outside had softened to mist, blurring the city lights into watercolor hues. A couple in the corner laughed softly, their plates empty, their glasses full of half-drunk wine.

Jack exhaled, long and tired, but something inside his expression softened — a small surrender.

Jack: “You know,” he said, “maybe that’s why I keep coming here. To feed something I don’t know how to name.”

Jeeny: “You do know. You just don’t say it aloud.”

Jack: “Say what?”

Jeeny: “That you’re hungry — not for food, but for meaning.”

Host: Her words slipped through the space between them like a thread of gold. Jack looked down, fingers tracing the rim of his glass, his reflection rippling in the surface of the wine.

Jack: “Maybe I am. And maybe that’s what poetry is — seasoning for the emptiness.”

Jeeny: “And food is the poem that reminds us we belong here — in this flesh, in this life, in this moment.”

Host: The candle burned lower, the wax pooling at its base. The world beyond the window had grown quiet, the rain now just a shimmer in the streetlights. Jack finally lifted his fork and took a bite of the now-cool pasta.

He chewed slowly, thoughtfully, then looked at Jeeny — a rare smile ghosting across his face.

Jack: “You’re right. It tastes different now.”

Jeeny: “Because you’re feeding more than your stomach.”

Host: She smiled back — not triumphant, but tender, as if she’d been waiting for this small surrender. The piano trailed off; the candle flickered once more, then steadied.

Outside, the rain stopped completely. The city, like a satiated soul, exhaled.

Host: The camera would linger on them there — two figures at a table in the quiet heart of night, the last glow of candlelight between them. The plate now half-eaten, the words between them fully digested.

And as the scene faded, the truth lingered like the aftertaste of wine:

If food is poetry, then poetry too must be food —
for both teach us the same art:
to savor, to hunger, and to live.