Well, everyone brought a teacup filled with tea to our recent poetry jam. It was all about tea, or mostly all, and the prompts all came from The Republic of Tea: The Story of a Creation of a Business as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders by Mel and Patricia Zeigler.

Not only was a lot of tea (figurative if not literal) drunk, we had a suped-up version of our TweetSpeak Poetry tool going, thanks to Matt Priour.

Twenty jammers participated, and a few others accidentally wandered in, mystified by what was happening on Twitter. Sometimes the jammers got mystified as well. But it was great fun.

And now for the first three poems.

Governments of Tea

By @mdgoodyear, @llbarkat, @SandraHeskaKing, @arestlessheart, @doallas, @cfraser83, @jezamama, @mattpriour, @togetherforgood, @MeganWillcome, @charsingleton, @TchrEric, @JennyTiner, @gyoung9751, @ThinkArtWorks, @thegypsymama, @PensieveRobin, @ElizabethEsther, @mxings, and @moondustwriter. Edited by @gyoung9751.

Cities and Hillsides of Tea

The water swirls with
currents of green and brown.
Transported, I imagine
great cities,
India’s jewel ,
China’s crown,
Great cities, small towns,
villages constructed of tea,
tea pouring across the
yellow plains.
I never drank tea
before China took me.
I imagine hands in India,
bent backs pulling leaves in
the heat of harvest.
I taste their work, their love.
In fields, tea leaves
glisten; gentle are the
hands upon them.
The leaves grow on
soft hillsides,
pounded by time and
hard labor.

A Team Party, Funny and Sublime

I asked her to coffee; she preferred tea;
Our hands brushed at the sugar
and she took me. The water takes the
pot, and the pot takes the tea, so
what of you, then, and what of me?

More to drink and more to pour, and more.
Even the dust of Lipton bags swells with
grace in the pot. Our tea party rages between
the funny and the sublime, with sugarless
biscuits sitting heavy on our stomachs.

The cup’s bottom holds bees’ treasure,
bees’ sticky sweet pleasure.
Words work their sting like the smart
from the end of the bee that sweetens
the tea, so make mine plain; the orange
blossoms sweetly enough.

Polite sandwiches make me sit straight,
remembering this is more than just
respite, a warm cup in my hands, One
pot of space so filled with orange spice
and verbena, whistling cool mint.

A Journey of Teacups

Two quarts of cups. How
many cups in a quart?
A journey of many cups,
through republics of tea
ancient and new.
A journey of cups,
a journey of sips,
a journey of warmth
crashing through me.
The journey of the cup
from my hand to yours
but a moment
lasting a thousand years,
a thousand days,
a thousand kisses in
one delicate-held breath,
a liquid warmth
redder than rubies.

True tea requires a journey
across land, across sea.
A journey of many cups
began with a single sip
there, so far from home,
alone, trying chopsticks for the
first time. The journey across
land done, the journey to the
mind begins, a journey through
republics of leaves, water high,
suns low over China, over India,
over sea. In search of true tea
Lady Grey joins Earl, sailing past
islands of ivory and cinnamon
to the voting booth of teas,
casting lots for red or green or
black orange pekoe, and instead
found eyes as deep as the sea.

TweetSpeak Poetry is joining the One Shot Wednesday fun at One Stop Poetry. We’ve chosen “Doubt Palace” by Bradley Moore, to feature as our (that’s the imperial “our”) collective contribution. Mr. Moore’s poetry blog is And the Other Thing Is. When he’s not writing poetry, he’s writing about business stuff at Shrinking the Camel.

One Shot Wednesday has been created by four poets — Lesley Moon, Adam Dustus, Brian Miller and Pete Marshall — to allow poets from all over the world to post a poem on any subject or theme each week. The contributions are as diverse as they are good. So check out One Stop Poetry — and enjoy Mr. Moore’s poem below.

Doubt Palace

By Bradley Moore

Friday evenings
In Doubt Palace,
We cut the floor just right -
Fantastic.
Shimmering gowns
and stained tuxedos,
Moving in circles,
forming lines
like shining deals
awaiting signature;
And there was
just enough champagne
to remind us
that these huddled accomplishments
would never make it
back through
the front gates
again.

Two weeks ago, we played a slow version of T. S. Poetry that lasted all day. We told people we were aiming to crowd source some sonnets, and I made up the dumb name of “exploding ninja poetry.” 13 people submitted 57 lines to the game, likely because it was new, and we even had John Poch, the editor of 32 Poems Magazine, drop in with a few lines.

The rules were simple, but more structured than other games we’ve played here.

1. Tweet 1-3 lines of poetry at a time throughout the day (using slash marks / to indicate line breaks).

2. End your lines with the following words, or words that rhyme with them:

wine, bread, work, hope, car

3. Each line should be 10-15 syllables roughly to approximate iambic pentameter. (This about 35-45 characters in twitter).

Here are two Italian sonnets mined from the lines you all submitted:

Courtship
by @jpoch @mdgoodyear @papagoodyear
@togetherforgood @llbarkat @denadyer @mattpriour
edited by @mdgoodyear

I like the ancient miracle of wine;
because this slightly dizzy thirst, this hope
goes untested, accepted like olive oil soap
poured on my head and shoulders and spine.
All the crap goes away, eaten by mold and time,
And guitar sermons of mirrors and smoke
and pollen turned to toxic seeds of rope.
Gas us up with lead until our fuel lines
blacken, tighten, chocking each hose with char
happy harbinger of life after life after death
Orange cigarette butts, smashed cans by the curb
We will not find love by wishing on stars
but in this Merlot, lips at the sweet edge
All of us hoping, praying the offering works.

Body and Blood
by @KathleenOverby @mdgoodyear @JavaNicky @llbarkat @jpoch
@TchrEric @denadyer @JavaNicky @CherylRicker @gyoung9751
edited by @mdgoodyear

Bread is so sweet we spread butter or brine.
The first time through I thought I’d misread—
even the best magic turns gold into lead.
As evening sun reflects off glasses of wine,
find a red grape, clinging ripe to a vine.
No. Flour, water, salt, the old book said
then out of the oven pops hot crusty bread.
Your voice purple sweet sounds rose-petal fine
then the bread and the wine fulfill this whole trope
pour out our faith and all our twisted works.
We toast, we nibble, we nurture grafting scars.
Then feverishly feast and drain our cups of hope.
The bitter tannins leave us dizzy with thirst,
two sullen elect who pray, “Not too far.”

Special thanks to all who participated! If you want to try your hand at editing our lines into your own sonnet, we posted all of submitted lines sorted by poet and rhyme word at Tweet Speak Sonnets – May 2010. If you take a stab at it, be sure to post your poem online and send us a link!

Last summer, I drove to a high school in a central St. Louis suburb for a writing and publishing fair. Seminars were held inside the school; the parking lot had been cordoned off for booths, demonstration areas and even a children’s playground. I wandered around the large number of booths, and then came to one that looked rather forlorn – a simple set-up of boards and posts, little decoration and one man about my age with a hopeful expression on his face.

I looked at the plain sign, which read “Missouri’s Poet Laureate.” And then I did something I’m not known for doing: I walked right up to Walter Bargen and introduced myself. You see, I had read two books of his poetry, and I wanted to meet the man who wrote them and was the first person named poet laureate for the state (his term just expired; his replacement is David Clewell). He already had a reputation as an unabashed proponent of poetry and new poets, doing countless readings and talks and school visits. And for no pay; the state did, however, cover his travel expenses.

We talked about the two books of his that I had read. He seemed absolutely thrilled with the conversation, likely because I was the sole visitor at the time but also, I think, because I knew some of his work, especially his collection of prose poems entitled Theban Traffic.

I remember my first words after I introduced myself. “Jake and Stella,” I said, referring to the two characters featured in the work. Bargen smiled and nodded. “This is going to sound odd, but reading about them –“ I hesitated while he waited patiently – “well, reading about Jake is like looking in a mirror.”

And so we talked, for a good 30 minutes. As we did, more people walked up and joined the conversation. I looked over the books he had for sale, and bought two I didn’t have. He autographed both, and for one – The Feast – he drew a picture of a fork, spoon and plate. I finally walked away, leaving behind some lively talk.

Now Bargen has published Days Like This Are Necessary: New & Selected Poems. The volume includes many I’ve previously read in Theban Traffic and The Feast, but many more I have not. Reading them all together is to gain a deep appreciation for the poet’s overall body of work.

Bargen writes about relationships – between husbands and wives, within families, and even more broadly, between cultures. I was surprised to see how much of his recent work was shaped by events in the Mideast, especially the war in Iraq and the civil war in Lebanon, and how he merges wars in the Mideast with day-to-day American life:

Beirut

Machine guns inhabit the rooftops
like hungry crows.
bullets peck the library
city hall the cobble streets
Allah’s forehead.

To the east
mountains belch dust
as artillery fires into the city
planting the bloom of brown orchids
on the beach apartments
on the Hilton
in courtyards filled
with the shattered rosary of bricks.

People are opening their bodies
for the world to read
the print still wet and so red
it pours out a stoplight
on Broadway and Ninth
in downtown Columbia, Missouri.

I’ve stood at Broadway and Ninth in downtown Columbia, but I never imagined blood pouring from the stoplight. Bargen does more than that here, of course – he invites us to imagine small-city America as a kind of Beirut.

He also tells stories, stories of death and loss that become stories of life, as he does in “Inventories of Ruin:”

Even the crooked is straight at any one
instant, when there’s no forward
or going back, no sideways to consider,
just as the asphalt beyond making capricious
turns. How it goes on or ends without us,
as it did Friday when night sped past
the overturned Ford that clowned
somersaults over the median, tossing
those drunk on immortality to the pavement
and ditch…

Bargen turns the story of a car accident into a life story, the wreckage of the car coming to symbolize the wreckage of a life.

And then there’s the story of Jake and Stella, told in Theban Traffic and included here. Bargen uses the prose poem form to explain who they are and unfold a story of two people who love each other but always seem to find themselves disconnected. From “New Waves on Old Water:”

Stella travels two thousand miles to sweep up the dust of another
relative. Whole mountain ranges pass below her quicker than
dreams. She perches on the edge of a continent.

Because they cannot see each other, they cannot exchange diseases
though the distant unease is worse. Though they cannot share a
bottle of wine their separate glasses overflow with a blush of light.
there is a smeared stain in the air like a burning city. Over the
phone, he hears her say that’s the sun setting over the Pacific…

There is distance here, and even alienation, but there is also the strong sense of longing and affection. All of the Jake and Stella poems reflect this, almost clutching the contradiction of love and simultaneous separation, even when they’re together.

These are quiet poems, meant to be read in quiet. This collection is impressive, and goes far beyond any need to explain why Bargen was selected to champion poetry in his home state.

(Maureen Doallas has made Walter Bargen a subject of one of her marvelous articles, posting it on her blog, Writing Without Paper. To get an in-depth look at Bargen and his poetry, visit her blog – you’re in for a real treat.)

Here’s contribution No. 8 on “Why Poetry Matters” that was submitted for the poetry and wine giveaway last month. The randomly chosen commenter received a copy of L.L. Barkat’s InsideOut: Poems, and the winner of the 100-word statements on what poetry matters received a copy of the poems and a bottle of Sineann wine.

This is from Missy Kemp at Daily Portion, and this one was the winner of the 100-word statement:

Why Poetry Matters

You read it aloud in the darkened room, your lamp the center of one pool of light. From another bulb’s halo , the poet sent the words out to you. Held in the vowels and caught on the consonants, somehow, is your own story written by a stranger. Truth unknown before now falls on you from the uneven ends of the lines. This moment of recognition is as ancient as the cave paintings we shine our flashlights on, deciphering our story from the shapes and tracings of another’s, the one with the courage to pick up the colors.