Daniel Skach-mills

The Hut Beneath the Pine: Tea Poems Daniel Skach-mills

"The Hut Beneath the Pine" was a finalist for the 2012 Oregon Book Award, sponsored by Oregon Literary Arts. In his judge's statement, American poet, writer, and Academy of American Poets Chancellor Carl Phillips writes: "I admire here how simplicity doesn't have to compromise authority. How, in fact, the spare directness of attention can often be more persuasive. Reminiscent of the Tang poets... I think of Wang Wei...these poems allow us to 'shake off the dust of the world,' meanwhile quietly illuminating the tea ceremony's role as a possible way toward the Tao, toward 'letting whatever unfolds be enough.'" Commenting on this collection of 32 tea-infused poems, award-winning poet and author Margaret Chula says: "Reading these poems, I feel like I'm in a Sung dynasty landscape painting, sitting in a mountain hut with a sage who pours me tea and recites poetry. The poems in 'The Hut Beneath the Pine' embody the spirit of the Tao, the rhythmic flow of nature."