:: Account ::

I wrote “How to Make Beef Stew” shortly after war broke out in Ukraine. Beyond gluing my eyes to the news cycle, one of the only things I felt capable of doing the day after the war broke out was making beef stew, which for me is a major comfort food in winter. I love how it feels like a hug in a bowl and the aroma spreads through the whole house. In this poem I wanted to capture the juxtaposition between the comforting nature of the stew and the unthinkable violence occurring. I also wanted the poem to demonstrate the inability of daily comforts (like beef stew) to take my mind off the violence, particularly through the simile where sprinkling flour on meat makes the speaker think of the image of snow covering dead bodies, which was something I saw on the news. Ultimately, this poem ends with ruminating on whether this is the kind of world I would want to bring children into.

Stevie Edwards holds a PhD in creative writing from University of North Texas and an MFA in poetry from Cornell University. Stevie’s poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review, Crazyhorse, and elsewhere. They are a Lecturer at Clemson University and author of Sadness Workshop (Button Poetry, 2018), Humanly (Small Doggies Press, 2015), and Good Grief (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012). Edwards is currently Poetry Editor of The South Carolina Review and their third full-length collection of poetry, Quiet Armor, is forthcoming from Northwestern University Press’s Curbstone imprint. Originally a Michigander, they now live in South Carolina with their husband and a small herd of rescue pitbulls (Daisy, Tinkerbell, and Peaches). Stevie uses she/they pronouns.