Light
Comes Slowly
By
Edith Shiffert
A
Review
As
I continue to explore the world of syllabic Haiku, I sometimes discover a work
from the past that has faded from view.
Such a work is a collection of Haiku by Edith Shiffert called “Light
Comes Slowly”.
“Light”
was published in1997 by Katsura Press. I
don’t believe it was ever reprinted. The
collection received the Haiku Society of America’s ‘Merit Book Award’ for 1998.
Shiffert
was born in the U.S. but she moved to Japan in the 1960’s. She has lived in Japan, mostly Kyoto I
understand, for decades. Shiffert
married a Japanese man, Yuki Sawa.
Together they published “Haiku Master Buson” in 2007; a superb
collection of Buson’s Haiku.
The
Haiku collection “Light Comes Slowly” is arranged according to the twelve
months; there are twelve chapters beginning with ‘January’, ending with ‘December’. This is an effective arrangement, a kind of
expansion of the four seasons arrangement often found in Haiku anthologies.
The
writing in “Light” is assured and mature.
These are observations on nature and the world from a woman who has had
a long life and has taken all of her varied experiences, distilled them, and is
able to communicate them to us. There is
a sense of serenity in this collection that I find compelling.
Many
of the Haiku are from the perspective of old age:
Our
silly old age
makes
every flower lovely,
every
dog a friend.
Some
are contemplative:
Be
still now, be still.
See
the sunlight on your hands
and
on air, your breath.
Just
now as we change
from
one year to another,
I
remember you.
Shiffert
is self-assured as a poet, having published many volumes previously. This allows her to use standard English poetic
constructions such as metaphor:
I
feel my spirit
glowing
in a dark forest
like
the last red leaves.
I
find this Haiku particularly moving. The
metaphor is striking and points to an experience of inwardness that is truly
mysterious.
There
are themes that weave through the twelve months. One is that of old age. Another is her fondness for cats; quite a few
of the Haiku highlight her relationship to felines:
Water
in a vase
on
the table, cat drinking.
The
end of August.
Shiffert’s
Haiku are syllabic, as the examples above indicate. The flow of English is completely natural,
the images striking, and the way the Haiku link to each other as we move
through the calendar year gives the reader a steady sense of flow and ease. Shiffert’s commitment to a syllabic approach
to Haiku is intriguing to me because in other collections of her poetry most of
the poems are free verse. But when she
composes Haiku (and Renga, in another collection) Shiffert adopts a syllabic
approach. This is another indication of
her sense of self-assuredness and her strong connection with the Japanese
poetic tradition, a tradition of formal verse.
This
collection deserves to be reprinted, but short of that there are used copies
available; I found mine at amazon. This
is an excellent collection of poetry and an excellent collection of Haiku. I think it deserves to be more widely
known.
In
closing, a final Haiku from the collection:
The
sky is all black
then
light comes slowly, slowly
while
the cat watches.
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