Ten Poems About Baking

These ten poems celebrate all that’s wonderful about baking ? the time-honoured recipes, the patient kneading and stirring of ingredients, the sticky fingers in the mixing bowl. Baking, the poems seem to say again and again, is a profoundly human art: a homemade summer pudding can create “a stillness lost in taste” at a dinner party with friends, while an old spice jar can transport us swiftly back to childhood: “I opened one: faint kitchen scents (a trace of fruit breads, Welsh cakes, and the kitchen warm and welcoming from school) took shadow form: allspice and nutmeg, cinnamon and mace…” – from ‘Spice Jars’ by DA Prince These are poems for anyone who loves to bake, as much as for those who simply appreciate the glory of a well-made Victoria Sponge.