Jen Herron

How People Take Their Tea

Mint in Morocco—

with apple shisha in a crowded café.

White leaves in a clay pot—

a hilltop in Japan.

Masala chai, sugar, milk—

plastic chairs on a Mumbai street.

Serene flecks in a white bowl—

the matted floor of a Chinese suburb.

Bagged, Nambarrie, semi-skimmed—

a bungalow by the Irish coast.

Jen Herron


Jen’s work has been featured in The Honest Ulsterman, Poetry Jukebox, The Waxed Lemon, Skylight 47, The Irish Times, BBC Radio and more. She won the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing, 2022, and is an editor for the Belfast Review. Jen is currently working on her first poetry collection. She has recently been awarded a nine-month mentorship at Faber Academy funded by the Arts Council Northern Ireland.