Episode 143 REBROADCAST: Additional Notes On Tea - Fady Joudah

A return to when Connor and Jack explored Fady Joudah's poem "Additional Notes on Tea." They discuss how the poem moves around the globe, how it interrogates history, and engages with the concept of God.

To hear more poetry from Palestinian writers, check out episode 132 of Close Talking, "Poetry and Palestine."

To learn more about Palestinian poets and those in the Palestinian diaspora, check out Vol. 15 of the UNBOXED newsletter.

Additional Notes On Tea
By: Fady Joudah

In Cairo a boy’s balcony higher than a man’s deathbed.
The boy is sipping tea,
The view is angular like a fracture.

Surrounding the bed, women in wooden chairs.
They signal mourning with a scream.
Family men on the street run up the stairs and drink raven tea.

On the operating table in Solwezi a doctor watches a woman die.
Tea while the anesthetic wears off,
While the blade is waiting, tea.

The doctor says the woman knows god is sleeping
Outside heaven in a tent.
God is a refugee dreaming of tea.

Once upon a time an ocean married a sea to carry tea around.
Land was jealous.
So it turned into desert and gave no one wood for ships.

And when ships became steel,
Land turned into ice.
And when everything melted, everything tasted like tea.

Once upon a time there was a tea party in Boston.
Tea, like history, is a non sequitur.
I prefer it black. The Chinese drink it green.