Recipes and Recommendations for Imbibing Beauty through Books and Beverages
By Annie Nardone
Pages, Pints, and Pours’s third summer-reading recommendation may give you pause, but I hope poet Ted Hughes' simple, straightforward (and slightly amusing) advice will entice you to take those first tentative steps into rhyme and meter. Jump in! (The martini may help.)
THE PAGES: POETRY IN THE MAKING BY TED HUGHES
“A word has its own definite meanings. A word is its own little solar system of meanings. Yet we are wanting it to carry some part of our meaning, of the meaning of our experience, and the meaning of our experience is finally unfathomable. . . .” —Ted Hughes [1]
I first heard of this book from contemporary poet Malcolm Guite in one of his delightful “Spell in the Library” videos. My curiosity led me to find Ted Hughes’s well-known, captivating poems “Pike” and “That Morning.” Following that literary rabbit trail (my shelves are filled with rabbit trail treasures), I discovered Poetry in the Making, an instructional text on how to write poetry.
Hughes collected and published the programming he wrote for the 1960s BBC radio series introducing children to the beauty of poetry and how to write it. He assembled this anthology according to lesson topics (animals, weather, family, and more) and included several poetry samples for each theme. Written for young readers and writers, but foundational instruction for any age.
PINTS AND POURS
Since Hughes is a Brit, I suggest the pairing of his instructional tome with a hearty pint of Boddington’s Pub Ale or Newcastle Brown Ale.
Or for fun, the Breakfast Martini, served at the Library Bar, Lanesborough Hotel in London.
There’s something for the younger poets among us, or the young-hearted teetotalers too.
Breakfast Martini
2 1/2 measures of gin
1/2 measure of vermouth
1 dash orange bitters
1 teaspoon of marmalade
Pour ingredients into a cocktail shaker and add ice cubes.
Shake 15 seconds until well blended, then strain into martini glass.
Garnish with thin orange peel.
PADDINGTON STATION SLUSHY
1 cup orange juice
1/4 teaspoon of natural vanilla extract
1/2 cup vanilla almond milk
6-8 ice cubes
Place ingredients in a blender and combine on high until slush consistency. Pour into tall glass and trim with an orange slice.
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Annie Nardone is a lifelong bibliophile with a special devotion to the Inklings and medieval authors. She is a Fellow with the C.S. Lewis Institute and holds an M.A. in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Christian University. Annie is a writer for Cultivating Oaks Press and An Unexpected Journal. Her writing can also be found at Square Halo Press, Rabbit Room Press, Clarendon Press U.K., Calla Press, and Poetica. Annie is a Master Teacher with HSLDA and Kepler Education and strives to help her students see holiness in everyday life and art. She lives in Florida with her husband and six cats, appreciates the perfect cup of tea, an expansive library, and the beach with family.
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[1] Ted Hughes, Poetry in the Making (London: Faber and Faber, 1967), 119.
