The Japanese tea ceremony is an attempt to impart meaning to that which would otherwise go unnoticed. After all, what is so different about serving, pouring, drinking tea, than the brushing of one\u2019s teeth? No-thing. What gives significance to the serving of the tea is the \u201cceremony\u201d itself\u2014that is, the form. For in the tea ceremony, the form is the content. Now, in comparison to the Western poem, \u201cfull of\u201d meaning, allusions, mythologies, history, etc. a haiku may \u201cjust\u201d describe a scene in nature: the landscape: a river, a tree, a bird, and not much else. But that is so very much already, Rolando P\u00e9rez seems to suggest in Tea Ceremonies for Winter<\/em>. So very much. \u201cThe objects of nature presented in a Basho haiku, for instance, simply are\u2014they exist for themselves,\u201d says P\u00e9rez. \u201cIf they are \u2018sublime,\u2019 they are not so for us,\u201d and this is what we must all learn, if we are to save the Earth from complete destruction\u2014the result of our Western greed and rampant narcissism. In this light, Tea Ceremonies for Winter<\/em> is an invitation\u2014through language\u2014to let non-human objects be<\/em> without submitting them to the control, manipulation, and exploitation of our Imperial I<\/em>. P\u00e9rez\u2019s Tea Ceremonies for Winter<\/em> is a book that says: \u201cwe are all in this together\u201d\u2014but that \u201cwe\u201d also includes mountains, rivers, plastic bags, plants, rocks, tea leaves, light bulbs valves, hammers, mice, etc.. P\u00e9rez accomplishes this with simplicity and elegance of style. As one of the book\u2019s haiku reads:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ancient bowls<\/p>\n\n\n\n side by side<\/p>\n\n\n\n on table<\/p>\n\n\n\n next to kettle<\/p>\n\n\n\n warm<\/p>\n\n\n\n speak, say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, in Tea Ceremonies for Winter<\/em>, all objects–human and non-human–speak, say their being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Haiku by Rolando P\u00e9rez ISBN 13: 978-1887276-89-4 \u2022 $ 14.95 The Japanese tea ceremony is an attempt to impart meaning to that which would otherwise go unnoticed. After all, what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,218,87,109,90,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-coolgrove-press-imprint","category-non-fiction","category-paperback","category-poetry","category-rolando-perez","post-design-default"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coolgrove.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/TEA-BOOK-FRONT-COVER.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9wWvk-1w9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5837"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9107,"href":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5837\/revisions\/9107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}