The Cup
Yesterday, in the café,
how beautiful the cup

that held your tea—
the yellow tea in the

clear glass, and the flowers
in the shimmering pouch,

and how well you told
the stories that fit

into the hour (which
lasted exactly as long

as a cup of tea) in the
clear blue tint of the glass

and how … “comfortable”
(I thought) I’ve always

felt with you. Even in 
the rain, which you

promised would come,
I’m remembering

the cup—how beautiful
the cup—in the yellow café.

-Joyce Sutphen
used with permission by the author 

The Cup was composed and premiered as part of the 2021 Source Song Festival. It was written for and premiered by Lindsey Meekhof, mezzo-soprano and Aubrie Jacobson, pianist, and distributed via online broadcast on August 2, 2021.

Molly Beth Hennig (BM) is a recent graduate of vocal performance and music industry at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. During her time at UWO, she studied composition with Dr. Ed Martin and Dr. John Mayrose and participated in a songwriting masterclass with professional solo artist Alarke/Mary Alouette hosted by the New York Singing Teachers Association at the National Opera Center in New York. Her past works include Lucille (2017), a musical theater solo for piano, strings and voice, First Sting (2019) for solo clarinet, Mr. Eel (2020) for intermediate piano, and Abandonment (2020) for SSAATTBB choir and piano. Current projects are a self-produced album and a piece for Pierrot ensemble.

Molly participated in UW Oshkosh theater productions The Fantastics (2017), Sweeney Todd (2018), and the UW Music Department Opera The Tender Land. (2018). Her awards include the Provost's Award for the Oshkosh Celebration of Scholarship & Creative Activity (2019, 2020) and the UWO Music Department Concerto Competition (2019) and Honors Recital (2018, 2020). She was awarded the Office of Student Research & Creative Activity Undergraduate Research grant both for her scholarship of Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben (2019) and Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre (2020). Molly's academic writing on the performance of Frauenliebe und Leben is featured in the 2021 issue of the Oshkosh Scholar. A recipient of the Leland Coon Fellowship for Musicology, she will continue her education at UW Madison in the fall of 2021.

Further information is available at: www.mollybethhennig.com

Joyce Sutphen grew up on a farm in Stearns County, Minnesota. She is a professor emeritus of English at Gustavus Adolphus College and is Minnesota’s poet laureate.

She is the author of seven poetry collections, including Straight Out of View, Coming Back to the Body, and Naming the Stars, and is a coeditor of To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets from Pre-Territorial Days to the Present.

Joyce Sutphen serves as the first Poet-In-Residence at Source Song Festival for our 2021 Festival.