Hello and welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I am Sean Johnson, and today is Tuesday, May 30th, 20203.

Today's poem is by Jim Daniels, an American contemporary poet, and it's called American Cheese. I'll read it once, then offer a few comments,

then read it one more time. American Cheese

At department parties, I eat cheeses my parents never heard of, gooey,, pale cheeses, speaking garbled tongues.

I have acquired a taste, yes.

And that's okay, I tell myself.

I grew up in a house shaded by the factories clank and clamor.

A house built like a square of 64 American singles, the ones my mother made lunches

with, the hungry man who disappeared into that factory and five hungry kids, American singles,

yellow mustard, day-old wonder bread, not even Swiss with its mysterious holes. We were sparrows and starlings,

still learning how the Blue J stole our eggs, our nest eggs. Sixty-four singles wrapped in wax.

Dig your nails in to separate them. When I come home, I crave more than any home cooking, those thin slices

in the fridge. I fold one in half, drop it in my mouth. My mother can't understand, doesn't

remember me being a cheese eater plain like that.

This is a remarkable poem, not because of its structure or its form, but Daniels is able to settle on a familiar

recognizable metaphor and make it do a lot of work to evoke feelings and

experiences that are common to most of us the speaker of the poem begins by

contrasting the experience of his parents

with the experience of his own adult life

and feeling maybe for a moment

like he has to apologize for

finding himself in a place where his parents

...