Amuse Girl by Hannah Raymond-Cox

Amuse Girl is a very bad pun on amuse-gueule, a free small dish sent out by the chef to awaken the diner’s palate before a posh meal. The concept of amuse-gueule is also unfairly perceived as slightly naughty because gueule is equivalent to gob. It’s been hypercorrected to amuse-bouche in Englishspeaking countries. This is hilarious because it’s still a filthy concept if your brain wants to interrogate the translation (is gob-amuser so much worse than mouth-amuser?). Despite the renaming, the unpredictable and inherently sensual nature of the amuse-gueule shines through.

From an elaborate imitation of caviar that turns out to be mushroom essence to just a blob of wasabi, I’ve had more amuses than hot dinners. Which makes sense, because they’re little touches of ideas. A good poem is a little touch of a big idea.

The following are poems intended to enliven the palate, satiate the mind, and make you feel like you’ve been on a weird-ass culinary journey. Please dig in!
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Hannah Raymond-Cox grew up in Hong Kong and San Francisco, and has bounced around the UK since age sixteen. She studied International Relations and Modern History at St Andrews alongside her career in poetry and her work includes original
plays, slam poetry pieces, and bespoke poems. Hannah won the Stanza Slam, was a National Poetry Slam Championships Finalist for Scotland, and performed on the BBC Stage at the Edinburgh Fringe. She has gigged everywhere from the Royal Albert Hall to a tiny dive bar in Hong Kong. When she is stressed she makes meringues.
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"A deftly seasoned and savagely funny repast. Hannah Raymond-Cox lays out before her guests a table filled with chewy words and sweet and stinging flavours." - Fuchsia Dunlop

"one of the best poets to emerge from Scotland’s spoken word scene" - Eleanor Livingstone

"one of the finer examples of spoken word storytelling - not one to miss" - Freddie Alexander

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