A Hip Sip
Beatniks play saucers
Ring teaspoon clappers
Jam with jazz rappers
Sing praises to Lao Tzu
Note: For more teapoet poems click and scroll HERE.
February 16, 2010
February 9, 2010
Cream Pours Like Snow Falls
Haiku with high tea
Best to sip slowly
Don't brew the oolong
too long
Note: Click and scroll HERE for more teapoet poems.
February 2, 2010
Dark Brew
January 6, 2010
Tea Poem
Contemplation steeped
in a pool of lavish tea
Share a cup of gold
Note: Meditate on the video clip HERE.
November 2, 2009
Tea Ceremony at Living Light
My empty white tea bowl on a white paper saucer held so much potential that I found myself smiling. It seemed to smile back like a happy full moon with a secret.
After the swirling tea was poured and my bowl was filled, I gazed into the steamy pool like a clairvoyant. With a meditation cushion tucked beneath me, I sat, letting my mind be transported to a mountain valley creek. To the tune of a monk's chant, I watched the dance of floating sticks and the shift of mud mixed with clear mountain rain.
Cakes, dark chocolates, sweet potatoes were served in silence. The song of a singing bowl rang us into the present.
Outside in the misty afternoon, the top of Buffalo Mountain was obscured in fog. Our collective attention turned to the dedication of the newly constructed mediation garden, designed in Japanese tradition by local artist Lora Giessler.
The boulders in the center represent the stillness within, unchanged by the waves around it. Around the garden wheel we stacked rocks, each one a testament to the living moment and the balance it takes to live it.
Post note: Floyd's Living Light Japanese Garden is open to the community for meditation and contemplation. More about Living Light HERE.
September 1, 2009
Tea Garden Bouquet
Hint of citrus
mixes with hibiscus
mingles with rose hips
in a tea garden bouquet
Note: Click and Scroll HERE for more tea poems.
July 15, 2009
Poet/tea
Poets rhyme sugar
with teacup and saucer
They alliterate morning
with mug
July 1, 2009
Tea Haiku
A scented cloud lifts
from a lake of Darjeeling
Bamboo flute notes rise
Post Note: Click and scroll down HERE for more tea poems.
February 3, 2009
Teapoets on Super Bowl Sunday
Camellia Sinensis and the Celtic Goddess Brigit. Seven women and a daughter. Scones and apple cobbler.
Crème de fresh and marmalade, red rooibos and Pu-erh carmel tea. Steeped in poetry, painting, and candlelight. Haiku oracles and stated intentions.
From the Gaelic Goddess Brigit and Imbolc to Christian Candlemas and Saint Brigit, patron of holy wells and sacred fires; fires of hearth, healing, forge, and poetic inspiration. The day marks the middle of winter and holds the promise of spring.
Teapoets on Super Bowl Sunday. Did the groundhog see her shadow?
January 7, 2009
A New Brew
Tea Blossom Blooms
Rusty Rose Mandala
A Sunrise Flower
in an Earl Grey Day
Note: Click and scroll down HERE for a selection of Teapoet Poems.
December 29, 2008
Teapoet
December 3, 2008
Teapoet
Tea-ball anchor
settling mantra
stills the tortured tempest
of an undecided mind
Post note: Click HERE and scroll down for more TEAPOET poems.
November 14, 2008
Coming Soon to a Teaspoon Near You
Serving up savory haiku and sips of poetic brew, wave after wave of words to lull and awaken, to soothe or inspire. TEAPOET is a new 28 page chapbook by Colleen Redman, available around town in Floyd or by mail. Send $6 plus $1 shipping and handling to 151 Ridge Haven Road, Floyd, VA, 24091. To read a sampling of the teapoems featured in TEAPOET click and scroll down HERE.
November 10, 2008
Teapoet
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Stream of clarity flows
from an orange pekoe sea
a leafy twig floats
Note: Click and scroll down HERE for more teapoet poems.
June 24, 2008
Teapoet
Folding little tea poems
Origami notes
Petals of the Orient
Light enough to float
May 21, 2008
A Small Sip of Poem
A muse infused
pot full of tea
must be why Buddha
is smiling
May 20, 2008
A Grand Trine Alignment
My birthday this year was like a Grand Trine alignment. That’s when three planets converge into a triangular configuration and, according to the principles of astrology, usher in an expansion of creativity, optimism, and good energy.
In my recent life orbit, the Grand Trine time started with the celebration of Mother’s Day. Three days later, my first grandchild, Bryce Gabriel, was born. Three days after that, it was my birthday. Three events, spread out three days apart, brought family connections, fun, awe, and almost more excitement than I could contain. 
But the excitement wasn’t limited to three days; it has spread out into a season. In between Bryce’s birth on May 14th and my birthday on May 17th, I attended a birthday lunch at Oddfellas as one in a party of three women whose birthdays fall within days of each other. We were carrying on a tradition started long ago, in which we share our birthdays in Grand Trine, Triple Goddess style. It began in our neighborhood with Diane, Dolphin, and me. Gretchen (above on the left) is the newest mid-May birthday member, filling in for Dolphin who is currently living in Alaska. In years past we have worn roses, peonies, and purple irises in our hair. This year it was late blooming lilacs.
At the third Saturday Spoken Word night, which happened to fall on my actual birthday, I was serenaded with poetry written by friends. 
Earlier that day, I was gifted and pampered by Joe with flowers, foot rubs, presents, and two master chef carrots cakes by Kelly Erb, the ones I wait all year for.
On Sunday, the day after my birthday, a TeaPoet Party was held in my honor. It was hosted by the High Priestess of High Tea, my friend Katherine, and was attended by a intimate group of dear friends, two of whom traveled from outside the neighborhood to surprise me.
“A tea buffet!” I exclaimed when I saw the teapots lined up on the counter. 
We each had a pot-full of dark and musty, sweet and fruity, toasted, roasted, rosy, black, green, or white tea to sample and share. There were English crumpets with jam and cream and butterfly china cups with handles of wings. A red silk beaded shawl gifted to me by my friend Juniper was draped around my shoulders. It worked well as a queenly prop, giving me the confidence to graciously receive gifts of conversation, poetry, pottery, and original art.
Ah … Rich in friendship and love, I am brimming, still smiling, and now starting to rest.
Photos: 1. Gretchen, Colleen, Diane. 2. Katherine, Jayn, Colleen, Juniper, Alwyn is sitting.
February 26, 2008
The Romance of Tea
Unfurled leaves ... waft waves of flavor ... Holding tight to cup handles ... tea lovers swoon ... ~Colleen
My friend Katherine and I are both involved in great romance. As lovers of tea, we've been mining the vein of gold that comes from pouring boiling water over camellia sinensis leaves for years. More recently we've both been writing poetry about tea. My tea poems are a series of little sips of words that I've glued onto black card stock and have been shuffling around like playing cards, as the ebb and flow of their order slowly reveals itself to me. Katherine, one of the managers of Floyd's Harvest Moon Food Store has been ordering their tea for years. At home, in her newly renovated terra cotta kitchen, she's been sampling exotic varieties, delving into their mysteries, and writing about them.
It was time for a gathering of the TEAPOET SOCIETY. When she invited me for a small tea party on Sunday, I said, "Sure. I need to do some more "research" for the tea poems I'm writing. I also need some new photographs, and you have the best teacups in town." 
Dark brewed oracle ... Three cups full ... A holy trinity ... from St. Brigit's well ... We both love tea, especially of the black persuasion, but she is the real connoisseur. There were three of us present. Gathered around her dining room table, she brought out a large block of tea, so compacted that she had to use a chisel to break off a piece for the pot. It looked like dark chocolate, or a hardened block of rich earth, with an elaborate design pressed into both sides.
I had never seen anything like it. Lowering my face down close to inhale, I jumped back and gasped. The aroma was undeniably tea, earthy but with just enough sweetness to be irresistibly alluring.
"It's like a gold brick with its value disguised until it's released in hot water," I said. Indeed, tea was once used as currency, Katherine explained. It's also been linked with poetry and meditation for ages and has been the basis of something nearing religion, Teaism, as revealed in the 1906 book by Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea.
Katherine does her research too. The block was pu-erh, a tea from China that is fermented and aged, and classified by year and region of production much like vintage wine, she told us. We drank out of crystal cups so that we could enjoy the amber liquid as it emptied, like watching a sun set disappear into the horizon. And the combination of sipping and reading poetry did prove to be intoxicating. 
Katherine read a poem called "PROCLAMATION TO THE WORLD ABOUT TEA!" that she had just finished that morning.It was about how hard it is to get a good cup of tea in a café or restaurant because most people aren't aware of how important it is to the brewing that boiling water be used. She read:
... After all, how distilled and contrived is my request
When compared to that of the Chinese Tea Sage and Poet
Of the eighth century, Lu Yu.
His requirement was for the water for his tea to be drawn
From the Center of the Yangtze River.
He was known to reprimand his apprentices for
Serving him a brew that he Knew was drawn
From the sides of the river
And from the improper depth!
"And they think we're fussy when we ask for boiling water to be poured over our tea?" I said.
Before I left I asked her for a copy of the poem so I could put it in the next Museletter (our community newsletter). "I want everyone to know this," I said.
Post Note: Read more about the Teapoet Society HERE.
February 13, 2008
A Haiku a Day
February 5, 2008
Teapoet
Ceylon amber moon
sipped to a crescent
slips to the bottom
of a bone china cup
Post Note: You can read about the Teapoets Society Tea Party in which the above cup that belongs to my girlfriend Katherine was featured HERE.
January 25, 2008
Teapoet
Steam rises like breath
from a talkative kettle
Water pours like conversation
into a quiet cup
Note: The photo is called "Self portrait in tea" and was taken at my sister Sherry's house in Massachusetts this past summer.
January 28, 2007
The Teapoets
Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage.” ~ Catherine Douzel
It was our first official Teapoet tea party. Six of us were in attendance. There were freshly baked scones still warm from the oven with lots of choices of what to spread on them; crème fraiche, maple butter, marmalade, and honey kiwi fruit. There were three kinds of loose leaf tea to pour in the one-of-kind china cups with matching saucers. The fresh cherries were alluring, and the pineapple served with pine nuts was warmed.
Some of the poets represented whose books we read from included Stanley Kunitz, Billy Collins, Julia Alavarz, and Maya Angelou. One woman brought Zen cards. We each drew a card and read to each other, like reading our fortunes from cookies.
Another woman brought a book called “Talking to the Sun: an Illustrated Anthology of Poems for Young People.” She read the title poem by Frank O’Hara, which began: The Sun woke me this morning loud and clear, saying, Hey, I’ve been trying to wake you up for fifteen minutes. Don’t be so rude, you are only the second poet I’ve ever chosen to speak to personally … After reading, she passed the book around and we took turns getting lost in the art displayed in it. Later that day at home, I did a search for Frank O’Hara on the internet and learned that he died at the age of forty when he was run over by a dune buggy while he was sleeping on the beach.
One among us had just returned from the latest Washington DC Peace march, and so she filled us in with all the details. Besides politics, we talked about our personal lives. The names of books and some quotes mentioned were worth writing down, such as this Zen saying: “Don’t seek the truth, just cease to cherish opinion.” 
As usual, I scribbled in a small notebook as we talked. The woman sitting next to me scribbled too. I joked that I had never met another person who took as many notes me. We shared my pen, but I let her keep it as a souvenir when it was time to go.
Time to go? Nearly four hours had gone by. They passed with such ease that we didn’t notice. We had tea-partied through several phone calls and well past lunch. But who could still be hungry? Besides all the lovely treats we indulged in, the poetry was rich and the conversation fulfilling.
May 1, 2006
The Tao of Tea and Poetry
Like the Sufi mystic poets of old who did not see themselves as separate from God and who met in secret to protect themselves from fanatical fundamentalists who thought otherwise, a group of women friends gathered around a table for tea and something more…talk of the Dharma, the Tao, the Wise Woman Way.
“Bring something to read that has inspired you,” our hostess requested.
And so, the flavors of hot apricot tea, lemon cake with boysenberry jam, scones, cream, and fresh strawberries and grapes mixed with the words of Rumi, Hafiz, Li Po, Gary Snyder, and John O’Donahue, for a lusciously fulfilling exchange that fed more than one kind of hunger.
Strange Miracle
O wondrous creatures,
By what strange miracle
Do you so often
Not smile?
~ Favortie Hafiz poem rendered by Daniel Ladinsky
April 26, 2006
Now this is My Cup of Tea
AKA: What will they think of next?
This is the first time I was served tea with a pyramid shaped teabag that could stand on its own and was taller than the cup the tea was in. My husband’s niece and I snapped picture after picture of it while diners turned their heads to watch. I felt like my blogger friend Carmi, who frequently photographs grocery store produce and recently had close-up photos of tea and cake on his site. 
It’s was also the first time I got served a whitish, seeded fruit that was cut into star shapes and that I couldn’t identify. My husband and others who were at the table are still laughing at my speechless reaction and my drop jaw expression when the server brought out my lunch of tuna and greens served in a wine glass. 
We were at the Chateau Morrisette Winery and I swear no one was drinking anything alcoholic. The tea was delicious! I was ready to describe it as being encased in a sort of mosquito-like netting, but the tea company’s website called it a sachet.