{"id":5603,"date":"2013-04-09T11:59:02","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T15:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=5603"},"modified":"2013-04-09T11:59:02","modified_gmt":"2013-04-09T15:59:02","slug":"tea-memory-day-9-of-national-poetry-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/tea-memory-day-9-of-national-poetry-month.html","title":{"rendered":"tea & memory: day #9 of National Poetry Month ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>If you\u2019ve read any of this blog, you know I\u2019m nuts about tea. Crazy, obsessive, elitist (and possibly boring) on the topic. Poetry, too.<\/p>\n

I have almost as many tea \u2018cookbooks\u2019 as favourite poets. There are six tea sets in the china cabinet,\u00a0 including two hand-painted by my grandmother, who also loved tea sets. That doesn\u2019t include the celadon set my husband brought back from Korea, the antique Persian set he bought me in Saudi Arabia, the hand-thrown pottery set in our wedding stoneware, or various tempered glass ones. Did I mention I love tea?<\/p>\n

Elsewhere \u2014 in poems, in essays, in letters and journals and who knows where else \u2014 I\u2019ve written about learning tea.\u00a0Long ago, in a galaxy and time far\u00a0far\u00a0away\u2026\u00a0In a desert city, in a box of a trailer, alone w\/ the wintry desert\u00a0shamal<\/a>\u00a0and new motherhood, I learned tea. It was my life line. Or rather the other women huddled together for support were my life line. A Brit, a\u00a0Madrasan\u00a0(now a\u00a0Chennaite? ), an Aussie, three Texans, an Okie, a Canadian, a Vermonter\u2026 an eclectic group, my tea family.<\/p>\n

Some of them already knew tea \u2014 the Brit, of course. And the Canadian and the Aussie.\u00a0 The Queen\u2019s brew has a long,\u00a0 wide, and mixed history. Here in the US, we drink coffee \u2014 proof of our rebellious natures. But no one ever turned to coffee for comfort. And few people write poetry to coffee.<\/p>\n

But there are poems to tea, and today’s poem is one of those. It’s new for me — new poets and new poems. I wanted something that married these two great comforts of mine. So here are TWO poems today, both on tea. After all, it’s my birthday!<\/p>\n

Here’s Kenny Knight, with ‘Lessons in Tea-Making’:<\/em><\/p>\n

Lessons in Tea-Making<\/strong><\/h4>\n

When I first learnt to
\nPour tea in Honicknowle<\/p>\n

In those dark old days
\nBefore central heating<\/p>\n

Closed down open fireplaces
\nAnd lights went out in coal mines<\/p>\n

And chimpanzees hadn\u2019t yet
\nMade their debuts on television<\/p>\n

And two sugars
\nWas the national average<\/p>\n

And the teapot was the centre
\nOf the known universe<\/p>\n

And the solar system
\nWasn\u2019t much on anyone\u2019s mind<\/p>\n

And the sun was this yellow
\nThing that just warmed the air<\/p>\n

And anthropology\u2019s study
\nOf domestic history hadn\u2019t<\/p>\n

Quite reached the evolutionary
\nBreakthrough of the tea-bag<\/p>\n

And the kettle was on
\nIn the kitchen of number<\/p>\n

Thirty two Chatsworth Gardens
\nWhere my father after slurping<\/p>\n

Another saucer dry would ask
\nIn a smoke-frog voice for<\/p>\n

Another cup of microcosm
\nWhile outside the universe blazed<\/p>\n

Like a hundred towns
\nOn a sky of smooth black lino<\/p>\n

And my father with tobacco
\nStained fingers would dunk biscuits<\/p>\n

And in the process spill tiny drops
\nOf Ceylon and India<\/p>\n

And here’s Jo Shapcott, with ‘Procedure’:<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Procedure<\/strong><\/p>\n

This tea, this cup of tea, made of leaves,<\/p>\n

made of the leaves of herbs and absolute<\/p>\n

almond blossom, this tea, is the interpreter<\/p>\n

of almond, liquid touchstone which lets us<\/p>\n

scent its true taste at last and with a bump<\/p>\n

in my case, takes me back to the yellow time<\/p>\n

of trouble with bloodtests, and cellular<\/p>\n

madness, and my presence required<\/p>\n

on the slab for surgery, and all that mess<\/p>\n

I don’t want to comb through here because<\/p>\n

it seems, honestly, a trifle now that steam<\/p>\n

and scent and strength and steep and infusion<\/p>\n

say thank you thank you thank you for the then, and now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve read any of this blog, you know I\u2019m nuts about tea. Crazy, obsessive, elitist (and possibly boring) on the topic. Poetry, too. I have almost as many tea \u2018cookbooks\u2019 as favourite poets. There are six tea sets in the china cabinet,\u00a0 including two hand-painted by my grandmother, who also loved tea sets. That…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[456,22,7],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,491,489,490,318,1190,492,1182],"class_list":["post-5603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memory","category-poetry","category-tea","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-jo-shapcott","tag-kenny-knight","tag-lessons-in-tea-making","tag-national-poetry-month","tag-poetry","tag-procedure","tag-tea"],"yoast_head":"\ntea & memory: day #9 of National Poetry Month ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you\u2019ve read any of this blog, you know I\u2019m nuts about tea. Crazy, obsessive, elitist (and possibly boring) on the topic. Poetry, too. I have almost as\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/tea-memory-day-9-of-national-poetry-month.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"tea & memory: day #9 of National Poetry Month ~ - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you\u2019ve read any of this blog, you know I\u2019m nuts about tea. Crazy, obsessive, elitist (and possibly boring) on the topic. Poetry, too. 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5603"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5679,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5603\/revisions\/5679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}