The Past in the Present

The Past in the Present

Those of us who have a long-standing interest in English Language Haiku often have a personal collection of favorites.  I have a group of ‘top ten’.  I’ve noticed over the years that this clutch of Haiku favorites shifts as I make room for new Haiku that I am reading.  Yet there are a few that seem to lodge themselves in the top tier of my favorites and have stayed there over many years.

One of my favorites is a Haiku by Charles Walker:

Still and silent dawn

The aroma of wood smoke

Other times and places

(Haiku and High Timber, page 65)

Ever since I have read it, this Haiku has stayed with me.  I find it particularly attractive and exemplary. 

The syllable count is 5-7-6, for an overall count of 18 syllables.  This is well within the bounds of traditional Haiku.  The long Line 3 does not feel overextended.  The lineation is clear; there are no run-ons.  Each line depicts an element of the Haiku.

The structure of this Haiku is of the list type.  That is to say that this Haiku is not a single sentence type of Haiku, nor is it a two-part Haiku centered on, or pivoting around, a juxtaposition.  Grammatically, each line is a phrase; notice the absence of any verb.  Each line is an item and the three lines together form a collage that creates a coherent whole.

Line 2 depicts the temporal setting: Still and silent dawn.  This tells us the time of day, but Line 1 also is a seasonal indicator.  A ‘silent dawn’ is not likely to be Spring or Summer because dawn in those seasons is likely to be accompanied by bird calls and perhaps the movements of trees in a seasonal breeze.  Spring and summer both contain activity in the morning hours.  Both fall and winter are possible candidates for the season as depicted in Line 1. 

Line 2 narrows the focus both in terms of time and space: ‘The aroma of wood smoke’.  First, in terms of space Line 2 brings our attention from the general setting of dawn to the specific act that is happening; wood smoke from a fire and its aroma.  Notice also the adding of the sense of smell to the Haiku in Line 2.  Line 2 contains both visual and olfactory elements.  In addition, the season is now likely confirmed as fall as camping in Winter season is more rare than camping in the Fall season.  With Line 2 I tend to think of the month as either October or November.

Line 3 expands the sensation of both time and place; it is both a temporal and spatial shift.  The combining of both temporal and spatial expansion in a single line is done elegantly, smoothly; and it is one of the reasons why I place this Haiku in my ‘top ten’ Haiku.  In lesser hands line three might have been a comment about the sky, an expansion of the visual setting.  For example, ‘Beneath the clear sky’, or ‘A few autumn clouds’, or ‘Bare oak tree branches’, etc.  Or, perhaps a more modern approach, might have added something personal such as, ‘The taste of coffee’, or ‘Vanishing dreams’, etc.  Another possibility would be to add a detail to the scene: ‘The distant mountains’, or ‘Oak tree shadows’, etc.

All of these possibilities work and no doubt the reader can think of additional possibilities.  And they would have rounded out the Haiku in a pleasant way.

The key to the beauty of this Haiku is the sudden expansion that Line 3 offers by placing the morning scene into a broad spatial and temporal field.  Line 3 also offers us an observation of what is going on in the interior of the implied person who is present.  In Lines 1 and 2 we have a Haiku that is painting a picture, a landscape.  But in Line 3 the person appears and we enter into the subjectivity of the person who is by the fire.  It is the subjectivity of the person that functions as the gate to the expansion of the temporal and spatial moment.

In Line 3 we interact with the person in the Haiku; the person is recalling ‘other times and places’.  This takes the Haiku scene beyond the present moment, from the isolated now, into the larger dimensions of time and space.  This Haiku demonstrates how our moments are not a series of separated snapshots; rather they are woven into the fabric of the past, emerge from the past.  The now is not a finger snap; it is a vast field that incorporates previous experience in both time and in space.

This kind of temporal and spatial shift is what makes this Haiku sparkle.  Spatial shifting in Line 3 is found in many Haiku; it is an effective technique.  Temporal shift in Line 3 is more rare, but I have observed it in, for example, some Haiku by Edith Shiffert.  Combining a temporal and spatial shift, and using subjectivity as the gate to this shift, is, I think, rare.  At least I have not often encountered it.  And to accomplish this shift with such elegance; well, Walker has really done a fine job here.

There is a quiet, contemplative, and relaxed feeling about this Haiku.  This Haiku illuminates the nature of the 'now'.  We have a tendency to shrink our understanding of the present down to a single moment; to isolate the now as if it is disconnected, as if it stands alone.  This Haiku opens up the now into its larger dimensions. It guides us easily to ‘other times and places’. 

Ancient Hymn

Cool mornings give way
To weekend hikes with old friends
In warm afternoons

With a few hawthorns blooming
At the entrance to the park

Two lovers hold hands
And dream of hours together
And a long future

The fountain at the courthouse
Is turned off to save water

The heat of the day
Continues into evening
With a sky that's clear

A comet, for a few nights,
Appears on the horizon

While at the zenith,
In the cool October air,
The half-full waxing moon

Lighting the deserted walk
That meanders through the park

Several flashlights
As policemen scan the grounds
For possible clues

The snowfall accumulates
(A world without rough edges)

On the Christmas trees,
For Sale at the Used Car Lot,
Many-colored lights

Dad sings to his son a hymn,
A song that's ancient and new

After Returning from a Solitary Retreat

They call it Sky Farm.  That's appropriate.
It is located in a high valley
Hidden between Napa and Sonoma.
Its purpose is silence and solitude.

There's more than enough time to contemplate
Without all the noise and strife and folly
That generates such a foul aroma,
So that life appears abysmal and crude.

Alone in the hills I can sense the great-
ness of God, the presence of the holy,
The eternal, from which the corona
Of His endless, rivering grace shines through.

When I leave I think, and this brings some tears,
I could live this way for a million years.

The Human Condition

One foot in the stream
Of this world of constant change,
A vanishing dream;
One foot in eternity
A refuge of true safety

Making the Best of It

Comet in the sky --
I won't hold it against you,
Your many, many lies

Haiku for Sports Fans: A Review of "Five Seven Five Sports"

Haiku for Sports Fans

I have touched before on how Haiku has become part of English language poetry and that one of the ways that we can see this is through popular Haiku.  There is a lot of popular Haiku published these days on every conceivable topic.  And this demonstrates, I think, how the 5-7-5 rhythm has become a part of English language poetry.

One of the topics that popular Haiku focuses on is sports.  Sports are a major concern for a high percentage of people and so it makes sense that the intersection of sports and Haiku would generate Haiku on this topic.  A recent example of this is Five Seven Five Sports: 2012 in Haiku – Language of the Games, by Andrew Hanson.

I found this collection to be intriguing.  It is distinctive in that the Haiku in this volume all consist of syllabic, 5-7-5, Haiku stanzas: that is to say that each entry has 5-7-5 stanzas, of various lengths, ranging from 1 to 14 stanzas. The emergence of the Haiku stanza is yet a further indication of how deeply Haiku has sunk roots into English poetic culture.

In the past I have been aware of Haiku stanzas only by famous practitioners of poetry such as Richard Wilbur.  So I was pleasantly surprised to find the Haiku stanza form in popular Haiku as well.  I take this as evidence that the 5-7-5 rhythm of Haiku is strong enough to create its own variations.

Hanson’s book is a major undertaking.  It is done as a calendar of sports events for the year 2012.  Each day of the year there is an entry for some sporting event that occurred on that day.  Thus there are 366 Haiku stanzas (2012 was a leap year), one for each day of the year.  The stanzas are of actual sporting events that were held on that particular day.  So for sports fans who also happen to like Haiku, this is a fantastic volume.  It is a record in Haiku stanzas of an entire year of specific sporting events. 

As mentioned above, the stanzas range from 1 to 14 verses.  The sports events that are covered consist of both college and professional competitions.  In addition a wide range of types of sports are touched on including baseball, basketball, golf, hockey, tennis, etc.  It is an amazingly complete record of the 2012 sports season.

Hanson’s Haiku are all in the 5-7-5 traditional syllabic format.  For the most part, Hanson’s lineation is based on grammar; each line is a grammatical unit.  Here is the entry for August 5:

Human lightning bolt

Running for independence

Usain in London;

41^st long stride,

With head leaning for the gold –

Olympic record;

Unstoppable force

Strikes across the stadium –

Black, gold, and green cape.

At times, Hanson uses poetic devices such as alliteration.  Here is an example from March 31:

Kansas moves forward,

Inbound to the title game,

Foes failing to foul.

Line 3 is nicely alliterative. 

And here are the stanzas for October 30:

Checking into game,

Allen taps KG’s shoulder –

No-look pass on bench . . .

On broken-down play,

A drift behind Celtic’s back –

Ray buries big 3 . . .

Shot clock running down,

Ray squares in replacement’s face –

Soft Miami bank . . .

Ringing D-Wade’s neck,

Rondo, too far behind, fouls –

A heated finish.

The non-sports fan, like myself, will miss much of the action.  Even the more casual sports fan, I suspect, may have to look up some of the names.  Hanson names players and strategies with the assumption that the reader will understand whom or what he is referring to.  But for the dedicated sports fan, like my older brother, I think these stanzas will be readily accessible.  So these are specialized Haiku stanzas written for a particular audience.

And I have found that this is often the case with popular Haiku.  The Haiku by Ryan Mecum, whose Haiku are focused on the horror film genre, assume that the reader knows the specifics of werewolves, vampires, and zombies.  In other words, Mecum’s popular Haiku are written for a knowledgeable audience in a specific field.  Likewise, Hanson’s sports Haiku are written for people who are already soaked in sports; the kind of person who readily recites sports statistics, knows famous games and players, and is familiar with the rules governing various sports in detail.

But even if you are not a sports fan, this collection is worth looking at.  It is a good example of the Haiku Stanza and how the form of the stanza can tell a brief story.  All of these entries tell a story, a story about a game won or lost.  In other words, these are narratives, condensed narratives, but nonetheless narratives, often with the main characters named.  As a Haiku poet, the tendency is to avoid narrative and instead focus on bare description.  So Hanson’s Haiku stanzas are a good teaching, or guide, on how to use the Haiku form in a narrative context.  Even a single stanza entry has a narrative context.  Here is the one for April 7:

Sergio beckons

Birdie brother on the twelfth –

Two roaring Amens.

The integration of story-telling into Haiku has not been undertaken in a significant way by the English Language Haiku community.  It is here, I feel, that Hanson’s work significantly expands the range of Haiku topics.  So even if sports is not of significant interest to you, if you are interested in Haiku, its scope, its range of subject matter, I think this collection has a lot to offer.  In closing, here is one I particularly enjoyed, it is for April 26:

Patented headband –

Cloned this night by Wolves teammates –

Absorbs one more blow;

A charge drawn and called,

One final substitution,

A bench full of hugs;

Head tap from the coach

Prompts removal of symbol,

Towel over head;

Fourteen years of work

Coming out Brad Miller’s eyes –

Bittersweet liquid.

**

Five Seven Five Sports: 2012 in Haiku –

Language of the Games

By Andrew Hanson

ISBN: 9781481714419

$23.95

T.V.

What did people do
With all of their evening hours
Before the T.V.?
They told each other stories
As the moon rose in the sky.