Tea Ceremonies for Winter/Perez

ISBN: 1887276890

Author: Perez, Rolando

Condition: New

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 ones teeth? No-thing. What gives significance to the serving of the tea is the ceremony itself-that is, the form. For in the tea ceremony, the form is the content. Now, in comparison to the Western poem, full of meaning, allusions, mythologies, history, etc. a haiku may just 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 Pérez seems to suggest in Tea Ceremonies for Winter. So very much. The objects of nature presented in a Basho haiku, for instance, simply are-they exist for themselves, says Pérez. If they are sublime, they are not so for us, and this is what we must all learn, if we are to save the Earth from complete destruction-the result of our Western greed and rampant narcissism. In this light, Tea Ceremonies for Winter is an invitation-through language-to let non-human objects be without submitting them to the control, manipulation, and exploitation of our Imperial I. Pérezs Tea Ceremonies for Winter is a book that says: we are all in this together-but that we also includes mountains, rivers, plastic bags, plants, rocks, tea leaves, light bulbs valves, hammers, mice, etc.. Pérez accomplishes this with simplicity and elegance of style. As one of the books haiku reads: