Well, everyone brought a teacup filled with tea to our recent Twitter poetry party. 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.
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nance nAncY nanc hey-you davis-baby says
thanks, glynn. i enjoyed reading these.
Matt Priour says
Wow Glynn these are really amazing. I would easily believe they were written with intention by a single person. You the noisy chatter and boiled and filtered it to beautiful poetry.
Maureen Doallas says
So much fun to see what you’ve done with our tweets (and yours)! These are wonderfully put together.