06 May 2011, 19.34
Kenny will be reading at Estover Library on Thursday 12th May at 2:00pm and at Devonport Library on Wednesday 18th May at
13 April 2011, 10.58
Kenny will be reading at Plymouth Central Library on Tuesday 19th April from 10.30 to 12.30 as part of The British Library's Evolving English Touring
18 February 2011, 08.49
Lessons In Teamaking, the opening poem from The Honicknowle Book of the Dead has just been published by Candlestick Press in an anthology called Ten Poems About Tea. Gathered around the teapot in order of appearance are Thomas Hardy, Kenny Knight, Eavan
Lessons in Teamaking- Kenny Knight
When I first learned to
pour tea in Honicknowle
in those dark old days
before central heating
closed down open fireplaces
and lights went out in coal mines
and chimpanzees hadn't yet
made their debuts on television
and two sugars
was the national average
and the teapot was the centre
of the known universe
and the sun was this yellow
thing that just warmed the air
and anthropology's study
of domestic history hadn't
quite reached the evolutionary
breakthrough of the tea bag
and the kettle was on
in the kitchen of
number thirty two Chatsworth Gardens
where my father after slurping
another saucer dry would ask
in a smoke-frog voice for
another cup of microcosm
while outside the universe blazed
like a hundred towns
on a sky of smooth black lino
and my father with tobacco
stained fingers would dunk biscuits
and in the process spill tiny drops
of Ceylon and India
which I would wipe with a tea towel
from the corner shop
I read the tea leaves
as if they were words
left over from a conversation
between two cups.
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