Dita von Tea

I have no reason for that title other than it amused me greatly and if my burlesque name wasn’t already Kate Astrophe I would totally be using it. I have visions of doing Dita’s Martini act in a teacup.

This teacup, which I bought Up North –

Tea & Miss Ju not included

and have immediately used for today’s tea, which is Irish Breakfast. This is a very strong Assam and much preferred to English Breakfast, at least by me. It is Proper Builders’ Orange in hue, too. Hurrah. (Actually, technically that cup is a mug not a teacup, before any outraged tea fascists write in and complain. Perhaps said Dita dance should be in a proper cup and saucer or something.)

I spent last week in Hull with the Best Friend and her Small People. In the words of Bill and Ted, whom I watched last night, it was a Totally Excellent Adventure (station). I’ve increased my animal magnetism – well, my general magnetism at least – by having my eyebrow pierced, and can recommend the lovely Raphael at Extreme Needle in Leicester Square for said hole-pokery. I appear to have returned home with the Smallest Small Person’s icky cold, which has settled in my head and therefore makes me feel like my brain is made of straw and cotton wool, rather like Fiyero.

Maybe I’m brainless, maybe I’m wise…

Any excuse to play the Wicked soundtrack, quite frankly. I’ve recently learned that Adam Lambert (the poster child for guyliner and manscara) played Fiyero, which I wish I’d seen.

Everwalker decided to take it upon herself to show me another fabulous Adam this weekend. Adam Cooper. Known for incredible balletic antics, serious lurking menace, bringing riding crops to the world of dance and a bum that could floor our friend Zoe at a hundred paces, he played the Swan in Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, which we watched on Friday. I can’t put across how utterly amazing this was, so go and either watch the whole thing yourself or see his sheer feathery wonderfulness on youtube. I have since learned that the character we were calling the ‘Black Swan’ is actually the Private Secretary’s son, known for his leather pants and ability to dance in said leather pants. Impressive. Both Swan and Son are played by Mr Cooper.

Adam, bringing a whole new meaning to ‘Defying Gravity’

I originally posted this entire thing in a blog I don’t even have any more, by mistake. Clearly having a rubbish cold disagrees with my internet capabilities and writerly skills. I should not be allowed near technology when I am ill. Bleh.

This week’s poetic form is a rondeau.

The rondeau makes use of refrains, repeated according to a certain stylized pattern. It was often a challenge to arrange for these refrains to contribute to the meaning of the poem in as succinct and poignant a manner as possible. The rondeau consists of thirteen lines of eight syllables, plus two refrains (which are half lines, each of four syllables), employing, altogether, only three rhymes. It has three stanzas and its rhyme scheme is as follows:

(1) A A B B A

(2) A A B with refrain C

(3) A A B B A with concluding refrain C.

The refrain must be identical with the beginning of the first line. I shall post up the rondeau later on.

One of the best known rondeaus is John McCrae’s beautiful wartime poem:

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Until next time,

Miss Ju

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I used to be a seamstress, but then I took an arrow to the hand

The original title for this blogpost was “Everyone who Hand-sews is a Masochist” and for good reason. As a long-term Breaker of Sewing Machines, I make everything by hand. I spent last night unpicking the inside leg seams of a pair of skinny jeans to turn them into a pencil skirt, or wiggle skirt as they are also known. I cannot buy these things off the peg so being able to make one that fits both waist and hips (the curse of a 10-inch difference between the two) is necessary. The reason for the masochistic tendencies is to do with stitch rippers. If a crab and the Terminator had an evil metallic love child, aside from the premise being a splendid movie second only to the classic Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, the result would be a stitch ripper. I have lost count of the number of times I jabbed the shiny little bastard into my hand. Hence, all hand-sewing types are devotees of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Science Fact. The silvery git has now been banished back to the sewing box to plot and scheme for the next time it gets to taste the blood of the innocent. I suspect it is currently terrorising the pincushion for being fat and calling the thimble a wanker.

Today’s poem will be a terza rima. I have written two of these so far, as I really like the rhyme scheme. I’ll present the shorter one for your delectation, only because I’m more nervous about the longer one so I’m keeping it under wraps for now. Terza rima is a three-line stanza using chain rhyme in the pattern A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D. The two possible endings for the example above are D-E-D, E or D-E-D, E-E. There is no set rhythm for terza rima, but iambic pentameter is generally preferred in English. There is no limit to the number of lines, but poems or sections of poems written in terza rima end with either a single line or couplet repeating the rhyme of the middle line of the final tercet. (IT’S THE FI-NAL TER-CET! *twiddly guitar music*… OK, just me who thought of Europe then… my shameful addiction to hair-rock is showing)

Today’s tea is… well, coffee, actually, after a couple of very late nights. Technically, as I went to bed at about 5 or 6 am, they were early, but we won’t quibble. I am ashamed of myself, and not just because of my spray-on-jeans-and-eyeliner musical predilections. How could I reject thee, o delicious camellia brew that you are…? I shall have some down-to-earth Builders Tea tomorrow in penitence. Which brings me to the Sugar Question. I don’t take sugar in tea, therefore my tea is known as a ‘Julie Andrews’. (White none – N.B. this joke only works if you rhyme none with gun rather than John.)

Saint Julie of the Voice of Awesome.

I have heard black tea (and coffee) sans sugar referred to as a ‘Whoopi Goldberg’ – black none – in honour of the movie Sister Act.

Sister Mary Clarence flanked by Sister Mary Patrick and Sister Mary Robert

And a lot of my friends who take tea with two heaped teaspoons of sugar refer to this drink as a ‘Nato Standard’, for reasons unknown to me. However, this week the Queen of Smut (a.k.a. my housemate-to-be) and I have decided that a Nato Standard drink is to be renamed as a ‘Dolly Parton’ – white with two big ones.

"Bitch, please." - the divine Dolly rocks in 9 to 5

Oh the hilarity. Or possibly oh the humanity. Hugh Manatee was not available for comment, however.

In the sections of this blog where I don’t post up an actual poem, otherwise known as ‘the bits where I ramble about tea, poetic form and things which amuse me’ I’m going to post a link to a poem each time. These poems will not be written by me, but they’ll be poems that I’d like to bring to my readers for one reason or another. I chose this one for the sheer fun she has in playing with language (I rarely put swear words into my poems, so it’s a bit of a shock for me to see them in this one). It was also published in one of my favourite books, The Goddess Guide by Gisele Scanlon (HarperCollins 2007 ISBN-13 978 0 00 7261437) And so with no further ado I present to you:

I hate how you use me

Call the sky paranoid, skulking

behind the clouds. The grass mad

with rain, the wisteria neurotic.

Call the robin a loser, waiting

for someone else to turn up

a worm, the fox a cretin,

for standing on the train tracks.

Call the hedgehog a fuckwit

in the glare of a car, the sunflower

a slut, the peacock a poofter.

Call the evening light a cunt

for fading, Artemis a bimbo,

the moon a big fat moron,

the fallen apple, a failure.

–          Maggie O’Dwyer

You’ll never look at a hedgehog the same way again…

What a fuckwit.

Until next time,

Miss Ju

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All the poems of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand

Hola comrades,

The structure I’m working on at the moment is the ghazal form.

The Oxford English Dictionary (Gawd bless all who sail in it) notes that a ghazal is “generally erotic in nature, limited in the number of stanzas, and uses a recurring rhyme”.

It usually has a minimum of five couplets and maximum of fifteen. Each couplet should be structurally, thematically, and emotionally autonomous. Each line of the poem is of the same length (meter is not imposed in English).

The first couplet is a rhyme followed by a refrain. Subsequent couplets rhyme the second line only, therefore rhyming the second line with both lines of the first couplet. The final couplet usually refers to the author in the first or third person, or including the poet’s own name or a derivation of its meaning.

I have to say I feel ill at ease with ‘signing’ the poem in this way, but I’m trying to get over that. It feels a little forced.

I have been looking at some excellent notes and discussions on ghazal form.

Today’s tea is Silvertip White Tea – no caffeine, please, I’m British. Last night’s sleep was disturbed to say the least. I blame getting up at 3 am to write the ghazal that wouldn’t get out of my head.

Sorry to have to provide a link to the Daily Fail, but as it’s tea-related… apparently there is a new tea grown on panda droppings. Now I’m usually the first to ‘panda’ to Shiny New Things, but I don’t think I could ‘bear’ to try this one. Especially not at £22,000 per lb. (That’s the tea, not the panda poo, in case you were wondering.) If you don’t fancy reading the article there’s a shot of two pandas flailing around on the grass with their paws in the air, which gives this blog +10 Additional Cuteness XP. (Two pandas, one cup?! I’ll stop now.)

I think I should be worried by the idea that I want to tackle a crown of sonnets. Seven Petrarchan sonnets (98 lines in total), addressed to one person, each sonnet explores one aspect of a theme. Each final line is repeated as the first line of the succeeding sonnet. The first line of the first sonnet is repeated as the final line of the final sonnet.

I’m not sure there’s enough tea in the world for that.

If I ever write a crown of sonnets for you, I expect at least a cup of Russian Caravan in exchange. Possibly served from a samovar…

until next time,

Miss Ju

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The pen calls the kettle black…

This is poetryandtea, my new blog on WordPress. I am rather addicted to both.

All comments and constructive criticism on my poems are welcome.

Please do include your name with your comment, or let me know you’re following me. (Not in the street. I believe that’s frowned upon.)

I hope to entertain and amuse, and possibly entertain a muse. Making people think wouldn’t be half bad either.

I also hope to be able to add songs on this site once I’ve got to grips with recording software. Ah, technology, is there nothing you can’t do?

Now in the words of a wise man “All the unliving are destroyed and the kettle is on” – today’s tea is Assam, and today’s poem will be a villanelle. If you’re not sure what a villanelle is and would like an example to go and read while I write mine, check out ‘Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night’ by the incomparable Dylan Thomas, or ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’ by Sylvia Plath. Both splendid.

Now what was that about putting the milk in last…?

Talk to you later,

Miss Ju

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