Poetry Pairings

poetrypairings.jpgAs part of its Learning blog, the New York Times has a weekly Poetry Pairing series, where they “collaborate with the Poetry Foundation to feature a work from its American Life in Poetry project alongside content from The Times that somehow echoes, extends or challenges the poem’s themes.”
The poem for this week is The Exam by Joyce Sutphen, about a long marriage…

I am thinking
of my parents, of the six decades they’ve

been together, of the thirty thousand
meals they’ve eaten in the kitchen,

Finding a picture for this post was a challenge — it’s from an article about pairing cheese with wine & beer in the Oregonian. It immediately resonated with me (and side tracked my blog writing for quite some time), as the article starts “I suppose I’m biased, but for me tasting cheese is one of life’s major pleasures.” (The photograph is by Mike Davis.)