30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets: Drinking Tea

Many poets write about their obsession with coffee. I, however, am a tea drinker. Not any tea. It has to be good, strong British tea with milk and a little sugar, first thing in the AM.

Where did I acquire this habit? From my mother, who grew up in Nottingham England. Her childhood home was Forest House -- so-named for Sherwood Forest.

Forest House was torn down years ago. My mother's room was next to the train tracks.

I have lovely memories of tea time at my English grandparents' home, The Old Rectory. Visits there were rare (every 18 months or so) and always amazing. Which is why I didn't realize until I was older that my wonderful grandmother wasn't wonderful to all of her grandchildren. We had special status.

To make up for my April Fool's trick this morning, here is a poem of mine with some strong British tea.

Baba Yaga 

by Laura Shovan

What I loved about you, really, was your house.

We traveled the dirt road,

waiting for a glimpse of roof,
the familiar glint of sun on window.
The door, enormous and heavy,
belonged on a church.
Even I, the eldest, could not open it myself.
 
We explored the tiny room on the third floor
where I thought a crazy lady slept,
poked at the old gray parrot
who said your name in Grandpa’s voice
and liked the taste of children’s fingers,
warmed ourselves by the wide iron stove
that glowed charcoal all day long,
waiting, like the fairy tale,
for a plump and curious child.

Mornings, all three of us had tea in your bed.

The covers were filled with feathers.
Without your whalebone corset
you were powdery soft.
There were biscuits to eat.
Even Grandpa was friendly.

How easily we were trapped.

You pinched and prodded the other children,
who wisely kept their distance.
Your crooked pinkie finger
scolds them in their memories:
our grandmother the witch.

We recognize you now,

we who you favored and fooled.
Your back is turned to us
and the old iron stove is burning.


This poem was first published in Paterson Literary Review. It also appears in my chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone.

Those of you who know the story of Baba Yaga can guess the other half of my heritage. My father is from a family of European Jews, all of whom had come to U.S. by the early 1930s. Baba Yaga is a folk tale witch. She shares many qualities with the nasty old woman in the story of Hansel and Gretel.

Katya Arnold's book on Baba Yaga

I write out of my heritage, my family story, quite a bit. In a way, that is a writing ritual -- returning to family history as a source for ideas.

Amok in the Catskills: The Mansion of the Soul

When you dream about a house, it symbolizes the Mansion of your Soul. According to “The Dreamer’s Workbook” by Nerys Dee, each part of that house – even the hallways – represent parts of your psyche and different approaches to life. In literature, houses are more than a setting. They represent the people who live in them. I just finished “The Penderwicks on Gardam Street” by Jeanne Birdsall. I preferred the original “Penderwicks” novel, probably because the story is wrapped up in the four Penderwick sisters discovering beautiful Arundel Hall: its grounds and gardens, the contrasts between its comfortable cottages and intimidating grand house. We do become captured and captivated by houses. Last weekend, I was in the Catskill Mountains with my brother, Jason. We’ve had a family getaway there since I was in middle school and he was six. It’s a magical place for Jay. Our log cabin overlooking a small lake is the setting of his childhood adventures, pranks, parties…even his wedding. My mansion is the house my English grandparents owned. The Old Rectory sat between a working quarry and the edge of Sherwood Forest. My grandmother kept doves and chickens. I once helped build a fishpond in the yard. That’s the house I dream about. In children’s fiction, characters are often discovering their soul’s mansion for the first time (Harry Potter’s Hogwarts School, Culver School in “Looking for Alaska,” the Penderwick sisters’ Arundel Hall). In adult fiction, characters have a complicated relationship with these places. In Alice Hoffman’s “Here on Earth,” a woman returns to her childhood home and habits with disastrous results. Writers, let’s bump up those settings. Think about your protagonist’s Mansion of the Soul. What or where is it? What does the place reveal about your character? Recommended Reading: Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher;” Agatha Christie’s novel “Sleeping Murder;” Natalie Babbitt’s “Tuck Everlasting.” If you are a LOTR fan, notice how each setting symbolizes the people who live there (the Hobbits’ Shire, the Elves’ Rivendell, Sauron’s Mordor).