1. Closing 2025 with the Stew Year’s Eve dinner and a party hosted by two of my favorite people.
2. 12th Night in Soulard (always)
3. The engagement party my neighbors hosted for us.
4. Seeing Nate Bargatze perform downtown.
5. Getting to serve as the Poetry Pea YouTube editor for January.
I spent the better part of 2024 trying and failing to get in the habit of sharing my published work more often. On top of that, there’s the ongoing concern about how anything posted to a Meta site (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) is being used to train their AI. (I’m not even considering the dumpster fire that is Xitter up for discussion.) Of course, these days putting anything on the internet runs the risk of it being scraped to train AI without our consent, but there’s only so much anyone can do at this point. I’m about to go on a further tangent about how our riches tech bros are actively enabling fascism, but that’s not the point of this post.
Anyway, since my greatest source of creative control is through my own website that I pay for, I’m going to focus on posting my creative accomplishments here more regularly. So without further ado, here are some recent publication credits for 2025. I hope to make this a regular series (and come up with a witter title for it).
I was featured on Haiku Poet Word Search.
I have work in To Live Here: Haiku for the Victims of Hurricane Helene. All proceeds go to support hurricane disaster relief efforts.
I have two haiku in the Winter 2024/2025 edition of Wales Haiku Journal
I’m also pretty sure I’ve submitted more work in the first six weeks of the year than I did in all of 2024, so from a poetic standpoint, 2025 is off to a good start!
I created a pamphlet called 100 St. Louis Season Words, a combination of classical and region-specific haiku to support local haiku practice. It’s also available as a printable PDF on my Buy Me a Coffee page. If you don’t own a printer (my 15-year-old laser printer just gave up the ghost) and want a copy, send me an email and I’ll get one in the mail for you!
For the past two years, I’ve collaborated with haiku friends on what I call the Midwinter Day Renku. I created this renku variation in response to one of my all-time favorite works of literature, Bernadette Mayer’s epic poem Midwinter Day.
The story behind Midwinter Day is that Mayer composed the entire thing on Friday, December 22nd, 1978, the date of the winter solstice. The title refers to the fact that many older, lunar-based calendars consider the solstice the midpoint of the season rather than the beginning, which is the designation of the astronomical calendar we use today.
Midwinter Day is a 100-ish page poem about the day in the life of a young family (Mayer, her husband, and their two children) living in Lenox, Massachusetts. Largely free verse, this poem is highly allusive, contains numerous lists, and frequently incorporates poetic devices such as rhyme. In Midwinter Day, poetry is not separate from parenthood and grocery shopping; it’s intertwined. There is no distinction between art and the rest of life; they are one and the same.
Since first reading this poem in 2015, I wanted to create some sort of homage to it. But my attempts to truly imitate Bernadette Mayer fell flat, and didn’t feel true to the way I like to approach my own poetry. Once I went deeper into studying haiku and learned about the various forms of linked verse, I began experimenting with a linked form that I wrote solo throughout the day. But while you can certainly write a renku or other linked form alone, I found I didn’t really enjoy that. I wanted to collaborate. Midwinter Day might have been written by a sole author, and yet she is anything but alone.
After a couple of years of noodling around ideas, I finally settled on a shorter version of the renku. I wrote the first one with my friend Claire, a poetry friend from my Austin days. Last year, I tried with a larger group: six people in three time zones emailing back and forth. Tomorrow, I will write the third-ever Midwinter Day renku with my friend Dan, who lives in another country. It’s the first international Midwinter Day renku! I’ve kept it just the two of us because juggling such disparate time zones is going to be a bit of a challenge, and I decided a smaller size would help navigate that.
This approach to the form is still a work in progress. Not only do I keep learning more about renku, but I keep wanting to adjust the specifics of the structure itself. I’m already thinking of adjustments I want to make for next year, but I didn’t want to make more changes at the last minute and throw off this year’s game. The parameters for 2024 and 2025 will be different, but that’s just fine. I’m excited to see how this form evolves over the next few years, and look forward to the eventual feeling that I’ve gotten it just right.
A traditional kasen renku has 36 verses, though shorter variations exist as well. My first renku was an 18-line version because my in-person group didn’t have enough time to do a full 36.
The Midwinter Day Renku has only 24 verses. Since the lore behind Midwinter Day is that it was written in the span of a single day, the 24 verses stand for each hour of the day in which it is written.
The writing process does not have to span 24 hours (unless you have a lot of energy and ambition), and each verse does not literally have to correspond to a specific hour, either. Just as Midwinter Day is not a literal accounting of hour by hour, this poem should not be a ponderous notation that happened in each block of time. Rather, the decision to use 24 verses is a nod to the time span of the original Midwinter Day epic poem.
A traditional renku incorporates all four seasons, with certain verses assigned a seasonal designation. The Midwinter Day Renku, however, focuses on one season: winter. It’s written on a winter day and influenced by a different winter poem, so invoking additional seasons didn’t feel right. I wanted the whole poem to be fully grounded in the time of year.
That being said, 2024 is only the third year I’ve tried out this form, and I’m still refining the details. I’m not opposed to potentially putting other seasons in if I get to a point where it feels like the correct choice.
Most renku verses have a designated topic, and that topic is usually a specific season. The only other topic we occasionally see is love.
For the first two years, I tried this form, I did not use any topics. Since I’m not changing the season, I just kept every verse open. However, the original Midwinter Day poem is rife with topics that could be fun to use. Not only does the poem detail the events of a young family throughout the day, but it’s rife with cultural and historical allusions, as well as details of the current events at the time it was written.
This year, I decided to try assigning one topic for each verse. While in a renku some verses have no topic, Midwinter Day is so full of potential topics that I decided to try 24 topics. Again, this is only the third year of working with this form, so that might change in 2025. Right now I’m having fun and seeing what happens with each year’s iteration.
Verse 1: Dreams
Verse 2: People you know
Verse 3: Love
Verse 4: Children
Verse 5: Cultural allusion
Verse 6: Memory
Verse 7: Food
Verse 8: Current events
Verse 9: A discovery
Verse 10: Art
Verse 11: Incorporate rhyme
Verse 12: A book title
Verse 13: A store of some kind
Verse 14: Walking
Verse 15: Friendship
Verse 16: Cooking a meal
Verse 17: Religion
Verse 18: Music
Verse 19: Philosophy
Verse 20: Reference another poet
Verse 21: A list
Verse 22: Science
Verse 23: Love
Verse 24: The sun / light
While renku were traditionally written in-person at gatherings specifically designed for writing this type of poetry, long-distance renku have been written for a long time. Poets have written them slowly via postal mail, and in the internet era, people compose them via email or messaging apps.
I think that the Midwinter Day renku is well-suited to writing at a distance. The past two years, I’ve composed via email. This year, I’ll be composing via direct message in the Station of the Metro Haiku Discord. Just as the original Midwinter Day was written throughout the day, in between childcare and errands and the other facets of life, writing long-distance via email or another system allows you to go about your various activities and allow those to drift into the poem. If a verse comes in while you’re in the middle of wrapping gifts or feeding your kids, you can finish what you’re doing before writing the next verse. The things you do throughout your day have the potential to enrich the entire writing process.
If you want to write in person and you live with people or have friends/family visiting for the holidays, consider leaving a sheet of paper out on a table and come back to it throughout the day. Let the rhythms of your life guide the writing. Let the renku composition take place in those brief moments of pause throughout the day. (But if your life has a tendency to get hectic, maybe set yourself a few phone reminders to go work on it.)
Of course, if you want to sit down and write with another person in one session, that’s totally fine as well. And you can certainly compose by yourself, either throughout the day or in one shot. My goal in devising this form was to honor the Winter Solstice through one of my favorite poetic forms.
Beyond that, the only thing I would recommend is that you create an outline of the verse, topic, and the person who will be writing it. I think that’s especially important when you’re writing long-distance. Although this form is shorter than a standard renku, it’s still possible to get confused or lose your place. Having an outline and plan will help.
I posted the first-ever Midwinter Day Renku as a Haiku Girl Summer bonus post. If you would like to read what I first wrote with my friend Claire, you can view it here: https://haikugirlsummer.substack.com/p/midwinter-interlude-the-hidden-sun
Not only was this the first attempt at the form, but I also knew less about renku than I do now. So I hope that those of you who know the form well can overlook the stylistic issues of this novice attempt.
Wassailing Within
A Midwinter Day Renku written by Allyson Whipple (St. Louis, MO), Peter H. Schmidt (Lexington, MA), Eavonka Ettinger (Long Beach, CA), and Claire Vogel Camargo (Austin, TX)
Thursday, December 21st, 2023
iceless river
one prolonged blast
of a salvage barge (AW)
sideways sleet
maple javelins spear the earth (PHS)
the yearly
arrival of homemade
family stollen (EE)
how the time feels shorter
between holidays (CVC)
smell of snow due soon
silent slate blue clouds hover
soothe my solo heart (PHS
picking oranges from
the roadside farm stand (EE)
bare tree branches
reveal empty nests waiting
signals of green sprigs (CVC)
finding the long way
back to the office (AW)
wild parrots
flying against
el nino rains (EE)
the soup he makes
for me this cold day (CVC)
spotted tabby tum
smiling cat face sleeping
sun patch on blanket (PHS)
one last cigarette
at nightfall (AW)
moon frost
the chill in her words
after the smile (CVC)
crunching bubbles
fists deep in my pockets (PHS)
city walk
another fruitless
search for stars (AW)
lightning flashes
on the darkest night (EE)
dream waked
slip from bed unnoticed
drink in Christmas tree glow (PHS)
another cup of tea
to warm me from the inside (AW)
all the gifts
yet to be wrapped
or bought (EE)
the two weeks it takes
to heal from surgery (CVC)
one year in
a stack of moving boxes
still unpacked (AW)
glitter spangled envelopes
piled on the kitchen counter (PHS)
magnolia trees
rethinking landscapes and scents
to wake to (CVC)
wassailing within
as sirens wail outside (EE)
Although it was difficult for me to narrow down the best of all 100 Earl Grey blends I’ve tasted in 2024, I did want to highlight my favorites. My initial long list had 20 teas on it; I narrowed it down to 15 for the final best-of list. I tried to take it down to 10, which is why this post took so long to write. It was tough to cut five teas out of the initial list, and the more I thought it over, I couldn’t cut five more. All 15 blends on this list are memorable, and represent the qualities I value most in an Earl Grey.
There are certainly some more famous blends or companies that got left off the list. That is not to say they weren’t excellent. So much of tea tasting is subjective. These are both high-quality tea blends and they’re the ones that resonated most strongly with my personal palate.
This list is organized by each category. Some of the companies appeared multiple times in the same category, but I decided to cut that down to once per category in order to ensure other great teas were noticed. When a company appeared twice, I simply had to choose which blend I felt best represented the talents of the tea blender.
Each of these best-of entries includes an excerpt from the original review, a link to the full review, and a link to purchase the tea if you’re interested. These are not sponsored links.
(And yes, I am still working on doing a giveaway, but honestly, I probably won’t get it together until after Christmas. The last quarter of the year has thrown some unexpected challenges my way.)
The Eastside Earl Grey uses real Italian bergamot, and I think both the real and the Italian make a difference. I understand why some tea companies make the decision to use artificial bergamot. But the way mashed potatoes from scratch are more satisfying than mashed potatoes from a box, real bergamot makes a better impression than artificial. Sure, there is a time and place for boxed mashed potatoes; in fact, they might scratch a sentimental itch. And there is a time and place to use artificial bergamot. But tasting an Earl Grey that uses a real bergamot was a game–changer.
Full review appears in Part 1.
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link
Although the name might suggest otherwise, this blend from Artful Tea is a straight-up classic. The tea base is a blend of Ceylon and Yunnan teas, and the Français in the name refers to the French bergamot that is used for flavoring.
This is an absolutely beautiful blend, and is my favorite of the teas I tried for this post. I think there’s something about French bergamot that really resonates with my palate, because I tried this tea on January 26th (over a month before I was able to write this post), and I am still thinking about what an excellent tea it is. This blend uses Yunnan tea as the base, and something about that particular tea with the right amount of French bergamot is magical.
Full review appears in Part 3
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link
The dry leaves of this blend smell incredible, with a hearty dose of bergamot at the top of the aroma. When I steeped the tea, I made sure it was covered. Lifting the lid off of my infuser mug, the scent of bergamot wafted up immediately to greet me.
When drinking this tea, the bergamot unsurprisingly hits first. The tea flavor then follows in short order. And the taste progression is absolutely perfect. I think the Assam tea they used was just right to complement the bergamot. Assam brings just a touch of sweetness that I think complements the other flavors well.
Full review appears in Part 18
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link
Blenders at The Cove Tea Company combine black tea, peppermint, spearmint, bergamot oil, and French vanilla extract to create a rich and complex tea. It is smooth, sippable, and is definitely the kind of thing you could drink all day.
When I taste this tea, the vanilla hits my palate first, then the mint, then bergamot, then black tea. There’s a great deal of depth, and these strong flavors are combined in a way that allows them to harmonize rather than dominate each other.
Full review appears in Part 7
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link
The steeped liquor has a medium body, and when I smell it, I get the scent of tea first, followed by citrus. That order was consistent when tasting the tea as well. I think the inclusion of orange blossom was what made this taste extra-refreshing. It’s perfect for spring and summer, and like the Earl Grey Intense, this would be lovely as a cold-brew iced tea. I also don’t think it requires any sweetener, though if you like your tea sweet, I think honey would complement the orange blossom oil quite well.
When I finished my sample of the Anastasia blend, I immediately wished that I had more. This is the kind of tea that I could definitely drink all day long. It’s extremely sippable, with mellow black tea and bright citrus. This one is going on my best-of list, and definitely will have a regular place in my tea cabinet.
Full review appears in Part 11
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link
The dry aroma is vanilla-forward, and the raspberry leaf is strong as well, followed by bergamot and lavender. I struggled to detect the scent of tea. This is a medium-body tea, and the steeped aroma has the progression of lavender, vanilla, bergamot, raspberry, and tea. The flavor, meanwhile, is lavender-forward, followed by raspberry, bergamot, vanilla, and tea.
Given the sheer number of additions to this blend, plus the fact that I don’t love raspberry leaf, I did not expect to enjoy this tea. However, it wound up earning a place on my best-of long list. I realized that the raspberry leaf tempers the vanilla and lavender, which can both get overwhelming. All of the ingredients are perfectly balanced and work together rather than fighting. What this blend teaches me is that a disliked ingredient doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker when used in the right context.
Full review appears in Part 19
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link
While the aesthetics of the dry leaf aren’t everything, the addition of cornflower petals alongside the lavender creates a blend that is gorgeous to look at both before and after steeping.
While the lavender is the star of the show, it manages to shine without overwhelming the bergamot. I think that the addition of the cornflower petals helps balance things out. While cornflowers are often considered to have a neutral flavor, I know many people (myself included) detect a faint sweetness from them. I’m not a supertaster, but whenever I taste cornflower in a blend, it brings with it a sort of light, creamy sweetness.
Full review appears in Part 2
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link
The Provence blend from The Cove Tea Company contains black tea, bergamot, and French lavender. I was impressed with the balance of lavender to bergamot. I get a well-rounded cup of black tea, lavender, and bergamot flavors.
My major takeaway with this blend is that the folks at The Cove Tea Company have a good sense of the different levels and types of astringency in each component of this tea. This is an excellent blend that I would add to my regular tea rotation.
Full review appears in Part 6
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link
The Vintage Earl Grey blend includes Sri Lankan tea (from the Kenilworth Estate), plus French lavender and Italian rose petals to complement the bergamot. It’s truly an international blend! The dry aroma is, as you might imagine, potent! I noticed the rose first, followed by lavender, bergamot, and tea. One of the things that puts me off from rose-infused teas is that I associate rose petals with potpourri, but there’s no risk of that here.
The steeped liquor has a medium body, and when I smell the infused aroma, everything is well-balanced. That melding comes across when I sip the tea, as well. The lavender and the rose complement each other perfectly. They come across in equal measure, bolstered by the bergamot and the black tea. The recommended three-minute steep time was perfect, so I recommend you follow the directions for this one!
Full review appears in Part 18
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link (Currently available only in Canada)
The steeped tea has a medium body. When I smell the finished brew, I get cream, tea, and then bergamot in that order. The tasting experience mirrors the scent, with the three flavors emerging as a progression. You start with the savoriness of the cream flavor, then the bitterness of the tea, followed by the brightness of the bergamot. It’s well-balanced and exceptionally crafted.
This blend really tastes as though cream has been added to the tea, even though there’s none here. If you normally prefer to add dairy to your black tea, I recommend you try this one without at first; I think added dairy could overwhelm the delightful flavors of the tea.
Full review appears in Part 12
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link
This blend incorporates a combination of Sri Lankan and Assam teas along with natural bergamot and vanilla. The tea leaves are accented by jasmine blossoms and cornflowers, creating a dry cup that looks as good as the steeped liquor tastes. The body is rich yet light. The level of cream flavor in this blend is perfect. When I taste the tea, I pick up traces of marshmallow. To be clear, that is a compliment. I love marshmallow flavor, and the interaction of vanilla and cornflower produces that effect. Don’t worry, the bergamot is still there even with the creaminess.
Full review appears in Part 12
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link (Currently available only in Canada)
This blend contains green tea and specifies that it uses Italian bergamot. It’s a truly straightforward, no-fuss variation on this classic tea. In terms of resteeping the tea, the bergamot is still present on a second infusion, but considerably weaker, but still quite enjoyable. The bergamot doesn’t really survive a third infusion, but you’re still getting a nice cup of green with a whisper of citrus. This is a lovely blend perfect for the onset of spring.
Full review appears in Part 4
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link
Tea Market’s Earl Green blend contains Pouchong green tea from Taiwan; the leaves are big, bright, and gorgeous. Combined with triple bergamot, the dry scent is citrus-forward, but the floral tea aroma is still there. That scent profile repeats with the steeped liquor.
Given how light the bergamot was on the first tasting, I assumed it would be entirely absent on a second infusion. Still, I always like to do at least one additional steeping round, so I gave it a try. I was surprised to find that this tea actually had a stronger bergamot flavor on the second infusion! Yes, it was better the second time around. So if this tea doesn’t suit your palate the first time around, give it another infusion. This is a complex tea that definitely unfolds on subsequent steepings!
Full review appears in Part 17
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link
The dry cup is visually stunning, with a mix of purple, blue, and white cornflower petals. The aroma of the green tea base has a lovely complexity, both sweet and floral. The steeped aroma is bergamot-forward, and the sweeter aspect of the tea comes through as well. The taste of the tea is incredibly refreshing. This tea lives up to its name, with the bright flavor of the bergamot shining through. The green tea is still there, and it works well with the citrus. If you generally avoid green tea due to grassiness or bitterness, you should give this blend a try, because the bergamot mitigates those flavors.
Full review appears in Part 24
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link (Currently available only in Canada)
The blenders at Artful Tea understand how to balance out bergamot oil with the rooibos to ensure a pleasurable drinking experience. What’s especially impressive is that they make this work while sticking to the basics. The blend consists only of rooibos and bergamot oil. There is no extra citrus, no flowers, no other herbs to balance things out. When you stick to just the two ingredients, they have to be just right. There’s no room to hide, and the team at Artful Tea pulls this off masterfully. A common refrain on internet memes is, “10/10, no notes,” and really, I can’t think of a better way to describe this tisane.
Full review appears in Part 4
Buy the tea here: Purchase Link
On my birthday this year, I started what would become my first successful completion of the Buson Challenge, in which you write 10 haiku a day for 100 days. You can read more about my 2024 experience here: Buson Challenge Blog Post.
I didn’t create the Buson Challenge; I learned about it in a talk from Failed Haiku founder Mike Rehling in his 2020 presentation at the online Haiku Society of America annual conference. You can watch the clip here: https://www.youtube.com/embed/ozWETA0PeQI?si=T6hpIGni8rfPMl_R&t=939
I’m planning to start 2025 with another round of the Buson Challenge. The biggest thing that helped me was having a group to work with. Our regular check-ins made me want to push through on the tough writing days; I didn’t want to have to come back to the group and say I didn’t get my writing done. We didn’t check in every day; we came and went as necessary.
While I connected with fellow Buson Challengers through the Station of the Metro Discord, you don’t need to join that to participate. There are lots of communication channels in the world, and I use most of them. So if you want to take the challenge with me starting January 1st, 2025, just shoot me a message. I’d be happy to have you write along with us.
(And since I’m a fan of prizes . . . I have stickers available when you finish!)
