Coffee and poetry

8 poems to pair with your coffee

There are two things I love in life, coffee and poetry. Luckily for me, they pair perfectly together.

I read a wide array of poetry and I drink my coffee black. I even used to own a café. Wherein we would trade free coffee for poetry.

I encourage you to read the poems aloud, twice. Each listening reveals different things.
Think of this like a tasting ceremony. Please, savour each sip.

Each of these poems in an invitation to elevate your coffee drinking experience.
There are also three writing prompts to inspire a poem of your own.

This is an insider’s guide to coffee and poetry.

Perhaps the World Ends Here

The world could begin with coffee, no matter what I need it to survive. The opening line of this poem is so good. It makes me think of all the things that could happen during the length of a coffee. It reminds me of the ordinary locations that contain so much life.

Perhaps the World Ends Here – Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Acquainted with the Night

This poem was written almost 100 years ago. It still bangs. It makes me think of those endless nights, where sleep is a speck on the horizon. Or the mornings after, when coffee is the only medicine.

This poem was written in iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter describes the rhythm created by the words in each line. Each line usually contains ten syllables.

Acquainted with the Night - Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Wait without Hope

This poem sends chills down my spine. It speaks to something deep inside me. It makes me think of the feeling when you’ve ordered coffee at café. But the coffee is nowhere to be found. You must wait without hope.

Or when you’ve poured a coffee but it needs time to brew. When you anticipate the delicious taste but you don’t know if it will meet your expectations. This poem is for when you want to drink coffee and contemplate the mysteries of life.

Wait Without Hope - T.S. Eliot

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.

The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,

The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy

Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony

Of death and birth.

The Good Life

This poem reminds me of the days when I survived on instant coffee. With sugar and no milk. The days when I couldn’t afford espresso. It speaks to the long journey home. Coffee beans have traveled across the world to reach me. The water in my cup used be moisture in a cloud. This poem contains pain and memory and hope.

 The Good Life – Tracy K. Smith

 When some people talk about money

They speak as if it were a mysterious lover

Who went out to buy milk and never

Came back, and it makes me nostalgic

For the years I lived on coffee and bread,

Hungry all the time, walking to work on payday

Like a woman journeying for water

From a village without a well, then living

One or two nights like everyone else

On roast chicken and red wine.

Writing prompt

Coffee pairs perfectly with the process of writing poetry. This is a poetry prompt for such an occasion.

This prompt requires coffee. It could be real or imaginary. Think about your journey to get here, to this moment. It could be from the time you woke up to the moment you sat down with the page. What memories do you carry with you?
What thoughts flicker with your first sip? The second?
Write about a memory that arrives with your next sip of coffee.

If you need, use this starter: my coffee tastes like…

This is the time to be slow

I encourage you to drink coffee with intention. I also need this reminder. My coffee addiction wants the caffeine as soon as possible. But it is a beautiful experience to savour each sip, as best as you can. This poem reminds me to take my time. Eventually, my coffee will end and something new, something promising shall begin.

This is the time to be slow - John O’donohue

Lie low to the wall

Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let

The wire brush of doubt

Scrape from your heart

All sense of yourself

And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,

Time will come good;

And you will find your feet

Again on fresh pastures of promise,

Where the air will be kind

And blushed with beginning.

Go to the Limits of your Longing

This poem reminds me of bottomless filter coffee. It reminds me of sitting in a café with cup after cup of black blew. The days when anything could happen. Anyone could walk through the door.

Let everything happen to you. Feel it all. Live it all. The expanse within you, the world around you. Just keep going. Give me your hand and I’ll hand you another coffee.

Go to the limits of your longing – Rainer Maria Rilke

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,

then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like a flame

and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Writing prompt

Cafes are a watering hole between the solitary and the social. The next time you are in a café, I invite you to write about a stranger. Write about the details you see. Invent their back story. Write about a snippet of conversation, write about yourself in relation to them. Take your time and observe. But finish your piece writing before you leave the café. 

Fig Tree

I’ll admit this piece is more prose than poetry. But it still fits the essence of this coffee and poetry list. It makes me think of all the things I could be while I’m drinking coffee. Each moment holds such potential.

Fig Tree - Slyvia Plath

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

From a few pages later in the book.

"I don't know what I ate, but I felt immensely better after the first mouthful. It occurred to me that my vision of the fig tree and all the fat figs that withered and fell to earth might well have arisen from the profound void of an empty stomach."

For coffee

I wrote this poem with the intention to bless coffee. I wasn’t sure if I should include it this list but to me, it embodies the experience of coffee and poetry. I encourage you to write your own poem to pair with coffee. There’s a poetry prompt at the end of this article for such an occasion.

This poem is from my chapbook, Vigil and Vice.

For Coffee - Harley Bell

May your first taste of the morning

be the welcome embrace of coffee.

May you stir slowly and rise

into the fullness of your senses.

May you bless the sweet, dark,

bitter and bright. Bless all creeds

that initiate your body.

Every cup contains the possibility of a miracle.

Each sip could bring you back to life.

May you remember the recipe

for the perfect infusion

of water and earth.

May your presence

meet with mine

and hold true

to our delicious promises.

Bless the simple miracle of coffee.

Writing prompt

You know your own palette better than anyone. I drink my coffee black but you might prefer flat whites. I encourage you to write a poem that fits your unique way of drinking coffee. It could be a blessing. Or a slice of life. A potent memory.
Imagine you are sitting at a kitchen table. You have coffee and someone is about to walk through the door. What story do they carry with them?
Write the poem that wants to join you for coffee.

An invitation

It brings me happiness to serve. I have made countless coffees for other people. But it is also nice to receive. What poem would you suggest I read with my next coffee?
I would love to hear your recommendations. It could a poem you love. Or one you have written yourself. It could be something inspired from the prompts in this article.

Send me a poem and I will share it with my next coffee.

Talk soon,
Harley.