{"id":245,"date":"2025-09-24T18:52:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T18:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/?p=245"},"modified":"2026-01-28T21:30:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:30:05","slug":"tea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/?p=245","title":{"rendered":"Tea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This poem contrasts the cold of a late autumn day in the Northeast with the warm, welcoming atmosphere of a comfortable living room overlooking a park.\u00a0 Stevens once referred to the poem as \u201cA Tea,\u201d suggesting that it describes a gathering where you enjoy drinking tea together.\u00a0 Note that the speaker addresses another person in line five (\u201cYour\u201d), giving the poem a personal tone.\u00a0 Where do you see tropical imagery in this poem?\u00a0 How does it make you feel?<\/em><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Tea<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>by Wallace Stevens<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When the elephant&#8217;s ear in the park<br \/>\nShrivelled in frost,<br \/>\nAnd the leaves on the paths<br \/>\nRan like rats,<br \/>\nYour lamp-light fell<br \/>\nOn shining pillows,<br \/>\nOf sea-shades and sky-shades<br \/>\nLike umbrellas in Java.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Glossary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>elephant\u2019s ear<\/em>: a broad-leafed, warm-weather plant<br \/>\n<em>Java<\/em>: an island of Indonesia, in Southeast Asia, known for its coffee and tea<\/p>\n<pre>Wallace Stevens, \"Tea\" from <i>Harmonium<\/i>. (New York:<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. Public domain.)<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This poem contrasts the cold of a late autumn day in the Northeast with the warm, welcoming atmosphere of a comfortable living room overlooking a park.\u00a0 Stevens once referred to the poem as \u201cA Tea,\u201d suggesting that it describes a gathering where you enjoy drinking tea together.\u00a0 Note that the speaker addresses another person in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/?p=245\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Tea<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[32,31],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wallace-stevens","tag-poem","tag-poetry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}