Assistant Editor Holli Carrell: In this brilliant ekphrastic response to the controversial 2007 memoir Three Cups of Tea, Bibi B. challenges the silencing of women’s voices and lived experiences in literature and art by depicting one woman’s exploitation and social subordination in the home. I am moved by how this piece formally enacts structures of confinement on the page, as well as uses breathless, run-on syntax to underscore the never-ending exertion of domestic work.
Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin Should’ve Interviewed Some Women
Text:
and their brothers and their uncles too because unless it’s your father or brother it’s your uncle (until one of them is your husband) and the uncles are laughing with their brothers and my father and I’ve been tasked to brew another round of tea so I collect the cups to wash the stack of dishes (cups and saucers and kettle and serving pot because they’re guests and we have to show respect) and my shawl slips because my hands are full so my father chastises me for my indecency and the men laugh and commend him for raising me well when I use my teeth to hold the scarf in its modest place and brew the tea and pour the milk and wait for it to scald perfectly and crush the cinnamon and clove and elaichi to add for aroma’s sake and pour the cups and bring them to the guests and my father has sipped the crushed elaichi so he chastises me for failing to remove the pod (heaven forbid a guest sip it) and so I take the cup from him and brew another in apology as the men commend him for raising me to respect authority and they laugh and I bring forward rusks and biscuits and sweets (how could I serve tea without sweets?) and as they talk I melt into the background of their topics and minds and surroundings until I am invisible and I wait until they’ve sipped the last of their chai before I return to reality and ask if they’d like another round and they deny but my father insists that they’re his guests so I collect and wash and dry and scald and season and serve and the dusk finally envelops the sky and they prepare to leave to their homes hugging each other and bidding farewell and the uncles and brothers and their uncles all thank my father for his generous hospitality and when they leave I go collect the cups
Bibi B. is a Hazara artist and author based in Metro Vancouver on Kwikwetlem, Musqueam, Squamish, Stó:lō and Tsleil-Waututh lands. She uses multiple mediums of art to explore the intersections of her identity and make sense of her place in the world. You can find her musing on X, as @signed_BibiB.
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