On, In and Around Mondays: Eating Breakfast with Jane Austen

Sun reflects off autumn walls, glints on the golden rim of my teacup.

We are in the dining room for breakfast.

I am drinking rooibos tea. My girls are drinking green. We are eating bagels and reading Tea with Jane Austen.

Ours is a rich person's English breakfast. At least in Victorian times. The working class would have had meat on the table, and beer. Tea was a privilege. Jane Austen was the family keeper of theirs. She held the keys to its locked cupboard; after all, tea was expensive.

Drinking my rooibos, and the girls their green, it is hard to imagine the need to lock up our morning drink. It is hard to imagine that the expense of tea drove the English to empty their coffers until the country experienced a trade deficit. It is hard to believe that the government's solution was to offer opium to China, to try to settle the economic score.

Tea. It seems so innocent, here in the dining room for breakfast, and on the pages of Jane Austen's novels.

We laugh at the quotes about Mr. Woodhouse (from Emma) and Arthur Parker (from the unfinished novel, Sandition). Parker, hoping to impress a woman, shares, "I reckon myself a very good Toaster; I never burn my Toasts— I never put them too near the Fire at first—& yet, you see, there is not a Corner but what is well browned."

My littlest daughter decides we must toast our toast this way, come winter. We have a fireplace. She wants to drink tea, and dress up Victorian, and sip from painted porcelain cups. What does she know of China, and economics, of opium and locked cupboards. What does she know of tea. Except that we are drinking it in an autumn dining room, with the sun shining off golden rims.

Tea With Jane Austen photo, by L.L. Barkat.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place.

Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below. If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

I Am So Difficult

I wasn't really sure what I would read on Friday night. I had some favorite poems cued up. But I didn't know what my co-performer was going to pull out of his poetry hat. So I kept it open. This made me nervous as a strategy, but ended up working fine. Sometimes it is best to trust that creativity has a life of its own and will lead you in its way.

Anyway, after my fellow poet shared his final poem and nodded to signal we were done, I just knew I had to have the last word with this one. I'm thinking that when he (and the audience) laughed, I was forgiven for talking back one last time.

Woman

I am so difficult,
the way a jar of honey
is difficult.

All that sweetness
gets stuck under the rim,
makes your hands

shake

they have to work
so hard.


Honey photo by L.L. Barkat. This poem is in honor of One Shot Wednesday. It is also for Glynn's very cool Random Acts of Poetry. I don't know, Glynn, what poem do you think I'm from? Is this one kind of Langston Hughes?

You and Me in September's Christianity Today

A big thank you to delightful editor Mark Moring and Christianity Today— for discussing my work with this online community, HighCallingBlogs, and (very cool!) our Twitter improv poetry— in their September issue...

Participant First: L.L. Barkat Creates in the Context of Online Community


Article Photo, by L.L. Barkat.

On, In and Around Mondays: City of Words

"What the hell is going on here?"

Those are not my words. They are painted on the window of the Bowery Poetry Club. And somehow make me smile.

Imagine, a club in New York City that makes its way by sharing words. Verses spoken, barely breathed, or belted out. Verses sung. Poetry in notes, drum beats, guitar strums, the ache of voices rising, falling.

On Friday night, I became part of "what is going on here." I tried to give poetic voice to grief, love, beauty, laughter. Maxidus answered me with his own poems. We built a rhythm of words. Me, then him. Me, then him. A conversation in verse.

As we came to our last poems, musicians moved to their places one by one, and added their sound to our words. Cello, drums, bass. It felt deep, moving, inexplicably spiritual. We finished speaking. Crossed paths with singers. And a different kind of poetry took our place...



When I wasn't reading poetry, I was looking at walls. Walls of paper sculpture. Walls of mirror, artful graffiti. All of part of "what is going on here."



In the bathroom, I found a self-portrait opportunity. A way to merge with the walls, and this city of words.



Who made this night possible? The Village Church. And a city where a Club has fashioned walls to embrace words.



Bowery Poetry Club photos, by L.L. Barkat.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place.

Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below. If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

Catch it Live Streamed from NYC

Tonight I'm reading poetry at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City. Jason Harrod, Brooke Campbell, and Maxidus will also be performing.

Jazz, blues, folk, poetry.

Catch it online, live streamed at 7 pm, from the Bowery Poetry Club site.

Night-Stand Poetry

I am trying my hand at a five-line poem form that she took the time to explain. I listened carefully, but I am not sure I know how it works. No matter. I don't believe that's ever stopped me much.


White cup,
cranberry stained,
waits for me
to rinse her
red-free.


Cup photo by L.L. Barkat. This poem is in honor of One Shot Wednesday.

On, In and Around Mondays: Window Shopping

In Chattanooga, I walked past windows, shopping for memories. Every city offers this diversion, and I am a willing consumer. Ordinary words like "open" suddenly seem like treasure in neon, blinking, "look at me." I look. I angle my camera. I capture "open" and the reflected sky that is, itself, opening to night.



I find I can take my Jesus home on a band aid, should I prefer Him over BooBoo kisses adhesive bandages, or protective rainbow monkeys or fairies. He cooperates nicely by agreeing to sit in a tin next to a plastic alien figure who, herself, has preferred to stay in the open. The sky is still doing its thing, now peachier. There is still time.



Surely I am in need of a fishnet stocking lamp, or perhaps a blender with a green bulb, or maybe a wire figure... blue-bikini clad with long wild hair opening to imaginary wind.

In the end, by trick of a lens, I take it all. Greedy consumer that I am. I take the "open" sign, the sky, night coming on, Jesus and the BooBoo kisses, blue bikini-clad figure wild as John the Baptist in his desert. I take, too, the fishnet-leg and blender lights of the world.


Chattanooga Window photos, by L.L. Barkat.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place.

Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below. If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

The Book I'm Not Writing: The Tea Merchant

"It is a paradox of creative recovery that we must get serious about taking ourselves lightly. We must work at learning to play," says Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way.

I'm not sure that I'm in need of creative recovery, but I do feel the need to take myself more lightly. The more I do, the more creative I feel myself becoming.

What makes us take ourselves too seriously? I have my life excuses, but I believe I'm also susceptible to societal values. Cameron notes, "We are an ambitious society, and it is often difficult for us to cultivate forms of creativity that do not directly serve us and our career goals."

I have been staging a mini revolt against this ambition by doing all sorts of things that don't serve any useful purpose: an art pilgrimage, a tea pilgrimage, and now fiction writing.

I really have no plans to produce the next famous, or even infamous, novel. I don't know that I will ever finish these little stories I'm spinning. They are my word cups, and I'm floating little tea leaves in them just for fun.

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The Tea Merchant

He jumped into the jeep, jammed his key into the ignition. Hills rose up, everywhere around him. Mountains, really, stepped green and just now hidden by a stubborn white morning fog. It had rained last night, hard and long against his borrowed hut. Still, Li Yang had made her way over the wet path and greeted him before dawn with a cup of tea, green.

Stein had drunk the cup in haste. It could take hours to wind his way up to his destination. But if the rumors were true, it would be worth the journey. Li Yang handed him a small basket. It contained hard-boiled quail eggs, a dried teacake he could scrape as needed, and a few plums. It was a gesture he accepted for politeness sake, though he'd already packed what he wanted the night before. It was important to keep his contacts happy, he believed, and so the basket now sat on the passenger seat, precariously balanced on top of the necessary gifts he was bringing for the trip.

Li Yang, it was said, had her ancestry in emperors' lines, the Tang and Sung dynasties. It was not clear if this was true, and Stein didn't really care. Li had been there when he needed her. She could have her roots in any history she wanted to think she did, and he would nod and pretend belief.

Stein put his hand to his left shirt pocket. The paper was there, and he wasn't sure why he instinctively checked to affirm it. Scrawled across the front was a set of directions that seemed unnecessary. How hard could it be when there was one road before him? But Li Yang had quietly insisted he take the paper along. Sure, he could do that, if it would keep her happy. What could it hurt? She would think she had done a good thing and be none the wiser when he emptied his pocket later on.

Now the engine was shaking, and its power called through the gas pedal. He pushed down firmly, swore under his breath about the fog, and began his climb.


Republic of Tea Lychee Blossom tea photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Written in Church (Why Not?)

Guitarist

She leans against you, barely—
white maple is gravity bound,
as is black walnut, cherry, rosewood,
inlaid with a woman's name, mother-of-pearl
diamond, cross, bird before (or after)
flight. Your fingers release, press, release;
she falls away, and at intervals,
returns.


One Shot Wednesday.


Guitar photo by L.L. Barkat.

On, In and Around Mondays: The Chair

I can see the wooden rocker again.

For days it has been piled with laundry that my family did while I was off being too sick to care. Little shirts; nighties; a green napkin, which my daughter gleefully handed me this morning, to accompany the scones she made and served. (I am smiling to think that a green napkin could be the source of such enthusiasm.)

I cannot remember where this wooden rocker sat in the home where I grew up. I try to picture each room in my memory, but the rocker isn't there.

My favorite part of the chair is its back, leaf and braided carved. Or maybe my favorite part is the arms, softened from the touch of so many hands. There is also the depth of the rock itself. Whoever made this chair knew just the arc to follow to lull a soul.

Now my curiosity gets the best of me and though I cannot walk too well right now, I get out of bed to satisfy my desire to know. I turn the chair over, my arms shaking, my legs aching. I lower myself to the floor. And I see it. An aged rust-colored seal I must lean in to decipher: Stickley and Brandt. Stickley I have heard of, but who is Brandt?

In the end, this is all I know about the chair...

It is old. My mother loved it. Stickley and Brandt made the chair strong. Right now I cannot rock in it. But the laundry has been put away.


Wooden Rocker photo, by L.L. Barkat.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place.

Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below. If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)