Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming poet Elaine Reardon from Massachusetts. We are excited to feature “Hye Holiday Gathering,” which explores the power of cooking together and how food connects immigrant families to their homeland for generations. Hye is what Armenians call themselves, and in this poem Elaine, a child, and her grandmother make bourma, an Armenian confection similar to baklava, with cinnamoned walnuts and layers of phyllo dough. Although it is sweet, the making is serious business: “Gram said be sure/ the nuts are ground fine! Grind them again— / still too big.” It’s not only a matter of loving and nurturing existing family, but remembering those who have gone before and a “homeland no longer on the map./ I’m the old one now. When I cook,/ grandmother’s voice follows me, step by step.” We are part of a longer narrative that includes our ancestors and our descendants. Elaine’s recollection makes the moment feel like yesterday while adding the wisdom and reverence of maturity.
Read “Hye Holiday Gathering” in Synkroniciti’s “Family” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Elaine Reardon is a writer, herbalist, and artist. She’s worked as an environmental educator and teacher as well. Her first chapbook, The Heart is a Nursery For Hope, won first honors from Flutter Press in 2016. Her second chapbook, Look Behind You, was published in 2019. A third chapbook is forming from Finishing Line Press in July 2024.