haiku commentary ~ Paul Miller

spring foghorn . . . 
cormorants spilling 
from an over-crowded ledge  

Paul Miller, Called Home (2006)

Sound, sight and movement, and texture. These are the explicit physical senses through which the haiku speaks to me. But there must be more haunting the images and the spaces between the lines to produce an element of unease in me.

There’s warning in the sound of the foghorn. Spring tides (despite the natural response of ‘joy’ that we have to the idea of Spring) can be dangerous and have stronger than usual rip currents. The company of black birds spills into the air like a ragged cloak of wing and cry. There’s a sense of danger, or risk, implicit in an overcrowded ledge. 

The ellipsis at the end of line 1 indicates hesitation and uncertainty. spilling/ at the end of line 2 also allows the reader to experience that sense of falling into the white space on the page. Line 3 ends gruffly with the definite thump of a single syllable: ledge,

Twice in the last two days I have read the closing line from e.e. cummings’ poem, ‘maggie and milly and molly and may’: it’s always ourselves we find in the sea. And the sea envelops this haiku. But while cormorants are creatures of

the sea, mostly able to withstand its capricious character, the fate of human beings is less certain.

If I am honest I do not want to face what this haiku has engendered in me: people spilling into a dangerous sea from an overcrowded raft, their (Spring?) hopes drowned. But at the same time I am unable to turn away from it. it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Of course my interpretation may not be remotely close to what Paul Miller had in mind when he wrote this poem. But all the proof is on the page to assure me that my response is valid. 

First published on Troutswirl, The Haiku Foundation Blog

haiku commentary: Ajaya Mahala

mosquito wings —
the colour of evening 
so thin

          — Ajaya Mahala (First Place, Shiki Monthly Kukai, May 2014)

It’s probably a default approach to use visual images when writing poetry and I know I consciously nudge myself now and then to consider the senses of smell, sound, touch and taste too. And, sometimes taking it a step further, to consider if synaesthesia ~ when the sensory stimulus from one sense is mixed up with another sense ~ might also be effective with the material I’m working with.

The use of metaphor, in any form of poetry, needs a light touch, and even more so in haiku where the minimal form has no space for a grandstanding author to hide. I want my haiku to encourage a reader to reflect on their own experiences, through the filter of mine, and not reflect on how clever with language I might think I am!

‘mosquito wings’ is written with an incredibly light touch, subtly using synaesthesia to blend visual and textural qualities. We automatically associate mosquitoes with evening so the scene is set by the end of the first line. But ‘the colour of evening’ is something that’s likely to differ between readers. Darkness, sunset, dusk – they all have their own identities as well as our own interpretations. Yet when I read the third line ~ ‘so thin’ ~ any depth of colour falls away and I’m left with a feeling of fragility that evokes a paleness and translucence. A feeling that I might test the evening air between my fingers, like the finest sheet of rice paper. Which, of course, takes me back to the ‘wings’ in the first line.

For me, the best haiku make me think and feel. This one does. It enters my mind and my body and makes its mark.

haiku commentary: George Swede

wildflowers

I cannot name

most of me

George Swede[1]

The opening line, composed of a single word, slows me down with its first two long syllables. And that pace is perfect for the contemplation woven through this economical haiku.

The pivot line is structurally satisfying – it rocks me in (wildflowers/I cannot name) and out (I cannot name/most of me) of the haiku – as is the balance of 3/4/3 syllables. But these formal characteristic serve the ideas behind the haiku too.

The first two lines, taken as a couplet, describe a concrete experience that’s probably common to all of us: a lack of knowledge or names forgotten as we walk through the countryside. The haiku instantly involves me, invites me to share the moment.

The 2^nd and 3^rd lines present a different kind of couplet: a personal reflection that is both concrete and abstract. How many of us could recite the litany of parts that make up our own complex organism? And how many of us are convinced that we truly know and understand ourselves: the different identities we adopt, the strange imagery that comes to us in dreams, or spontaneous and surprising emotion in response to unexpected events?

Yet all of those things are offered to us in this haiku of seven words.

Haiku are such light expressions it is easy to overload them with philosophy. The movement from the natural world in line 1 to the economy of expression in lines 2 and 3 avoids that through understatement and simple declarative phrase. It manages to be both witty and thoughtful.

It is perhaps no accident that this haiku is the final one in George Swede’s collection. Rather than close down the book, it opens it up for me, encourages me to reflect on what I cannot name, what I do not know, about myself and the wider world. It sets me on a road of discovery, should I choose to take it.

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[1] George Swede, Joy in Me Still, inkling press, Edmonton, AB T6G 2T5, Canada, p.79

First published in Notes from the Gean 3.4