13 Tidbits and Tea
1. I’ve been pruning little tea poems … origami notes … petals of the Orient …light enough to float.
2. I’ve also been expressing myself with valentines via conversation heart generators (like THIS one). See the heart I made for my friend Bonnie below.
3. Recently said to my sister Sherry while expressing my happiness that she regularly visits Loose Leaf: My blog is a mass produced love letter that I send out every day!
4. After writing THIS poem about Jesus as a graffiti artist, more lines have been coming, like this: Jesus is left handed and afraid of heights … I guess it’s what novelists mean by “character development.”
5. I recently read a blog post about basketball and left a comment saying: Basketball is so over my head. (I’m 5 foot 1 inch).
6. As for the Super Bowl, I should have been rooting for the home team, but besides Tom Petty I didn’t even know who was playing.
7. Speaking of sports, in the last few days I’ve spent a good bit of time laying on pool balls and rubbing a golf ball across my foot in lieu of needles as per the order of my acupuncturist who is treating me for a back problem.
8. I was shocked to hear HERE that rabid right winger Ann Coulter would not only vote for Hillary Clinton over John McCain, she says she would campaign for her if John McCain wins the Republican presidential nomination.
9. Coulter thinks Hillary is more conservative than McCain. What does Hillary think of that? Her reaction HERE says it all.
10. Chelsea Adams, a Radford University teacher of writing, has been coming to our spoken word open mics. After she recently read some poems about her love of coffee from her chapbook called Java Poems, Sally, the café owner, challenged the poets present to write coffee haiku for a future event. I told her I would use my poetic license to write about tea instead and that I probably wouldn’t be counting the number of syllables in lines. Even so, many of my teapoems from the series I’m working on have morphed into haiku in spite of myself.
11. The morphing of my teapoems into haiku reminds me of how I had no idea how to talk with an Irish accent until I read Angela’s Ashes aloud to my youngest son and suddenly found myself reading with a thick Irish brogue, which I can still do at a moment’s notice.
12. Somehow these two quotes go together (not because they were both said by Johns) and express my relief to be writing more poetry than prose this past week: Dancing is the poetry of the foot. ~John Dryden. Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking. ~John Wain
13. My love of writing little sips of poetry has led me to a new fascination with one line poems. This one by William Matthews is one of my favorites: “Premature Ejaculation”: I’m sorry this poem’s already finished.
Thursday headquarters is here. My other 13’s are here. View more 13 Thursday’s here.
February 6th, 2008 11:58 pm
I am impressed by all your writing effort. 🙂
February 7th, 2008 12:11 am
Thanks for the OKRA heart! I made myself one the day I played with the heart generator, so now I have two. If they had been fried okra, I would have eaten them already … lol.
“My blog is a mass produced love letter that I send out every day!” This is the best description of your blog I could ever imagine. Thanks for producing this love letter every day.
February 7th, 2008 1:57 am
I always enjoy your blog. There is such a variety here. I should think Hillary was horrified to be endorsed by Coulter. It could be a kiss of death.
February 7th, 2008 3:28 am
Another rich and thoughtful TT, dear Colleen….
I was Non-Plussed by that Evil Ann Coulter…HELP US!
Love that One line poem at the end there Colleen….
I sure do love YOUR writing, my dear!
February 7th, 2008 3:30 am
Oops..I forgot to say I love that Runne(?) sitting there on your Tea Table….!
February 7th, 2008 6:13 am
#13 priceless.!!!
February 7th, 2008 7:08 am
I agree with Bonnie about how perfectly you described your blog. A love letter, indeed…and a clever one at that. I’m always amazed at how your mind “twists”…and I mean that in the nicest and most admiring way.
Perhaps if I come up with a coffee haiku I can send it to you to pass on? After all, I still attend Spoken Words in spirit! By the way, the image of short poems as little sips of tea is a great one. It’s conjures up a sense of being in control of ones thoughts vs the free flow of “spatter”.
February 7th, 2008 9:07 am
Y’all up in Floyd have the most fun! Thanks for sending out this daily love letter so we can all share and enjoy it.
February 7th, 2008 9:50 am
Coulter and Clinton? Wow, what a team. That’s scary.
Great TT as always.
February 7th, 2008 10:42 am
You have me inspired to write a coffee haiku. I’ll have to think about it over a cup of coffee. Perhaps a haiku about both tea and coffee, since I’m coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon.
February 7th, 2008 11:00 am
Have you read the Steve Martin “biography”? It’s filled with statements like #5 🙂
Wasn’t Petty GREAT!
I LOVED Hillary’s giggle 🙂
February 7th, 2008 11:13 am
Boy… I don’t like Ann Coulter. Not for her politics or her books… I think she’s not a nice person. Like one of those kids who likes to generate a fight, then sit back and say she wasn’t involved. Do you like her? Maybe you can teach me to understand her?
I laughed at this post! 🙂
Happy TT.
February 7th, 2008 11:16 am
I find it interesting that many non-conservative republicans hate John McCain, and many either love or hate H Clinton.
February 7th, 2008 11:30 am
I guess you haven’t been reading here long enough to know what I think of Anne Coulter, Claudia. She’s more rude, full of hot air, and out to lunch than Rush Limbaugh is.
February 7th, 2008 12:08 pm
Colleen
Wonderful post!
I loved Hillary’s reaction(that laugh…so cute) and Ann Coulter has to be one of my unfavorite people on the planet!
How very nice your sister is a regular visitor here.
Your blog is truly a treat!
Margie
February 7th, 2008 2:57 pm
Wow, I haven’t been here in ages! I need to do the 13 more often!
#5 cracked me up, and I’m totally with you on #6. I don’t “get” professional sports.
🙂
February 7th, 2008 3:16 pm
No interest in sports. It could be shuffleboard and it would go over my head. I was born without the sport gene. Tho I do enjoy watching Summer & Winter Olympics.
I’m shocked to hear about Coulter too.
I love the generator. Already used it on my 13 today.
~S
February 7th, 2008 6:40 pm
what a great post, very well written,
February 7th, 2008 8:31 pm
very fun 13! several made me laugh out loud, especially #13. you’re quite the witty woman, colleen!
February 7th, 2008 8:39 pm
THAT (#13) was a poem I wish I had written!
February 7th, 2008 11:26 pm
Love you tea poems and your wonderful randomness. The post about your dad was very touching.
February 8th, 2008 5:22 am
Another fabulous T13. We linked you at our blog—we really enjoyed the Hillary reaction!
TT#23 | 13 New York Photos (Part I: Around Town)
February 8th, 2008 7:30 am
I love the heart generator, and I can’t wait to see of Ann Coulter lives up to her claim now!
February 8th, 2008 10:27 am
I love the way you let your ideas flow onto the page no matter what you’re writing so that even a T-13 “list” reads like a conversation. Thanks for sharing.
Hugs and blessings,
February 8th, 2008 5:27 pm
You’ve got a great roundup this week. I’ve already created a whole bunch of hearts dedicated to an ex I don’t want in my life anymore. They’re mean but funny (to me). Loved the Coulter clip on supporting Hillary. It’s nice watching all this from my Canadian bleachers. When you mentioned haiku about coffee, I immediately thought “I’d make it about tea”, before getting to your line. Now even if I want to write any other kind of poetry, I just end up counting out my syllables. It’s more catchy than I would have realized. That one-line poem is hard to beat.
February 9th, 2008 1:14 pm
Coultergeist as I like to call her. I wish I liked McCain since people like Ann despise him but I just can’t. I’ve heard too many bad things about his temper. And he wants more troops in Iraq so I just have to dislike him too.
Tea- yesterday we went to the winery and everytime I see that little tea thing they use I think of the photo you had of it on your blog a long time ago. I have always wanted that little cone but never tried the tea. Always having coffee and wine instead. I almost made a picture of the tea yesterday.
February 9th, 2008 3:15 pm
Reading this post made me wish it wasn’t a 13, I could have kept going.
McCain sold his soul to the devil when he backed down from the Bush Machine which is the biggest reason I wouldn’t vote for him. The media just needs to back down from it all and give us facts. We need Lois Lane and Clark Kent…just the news.
Such a shame that the real conversation hearts are only made for part of the year, but then it gives my teeth a break..Happy Valentine’s day.