HAIKU DIALOGUE – Allusion – Connections to the Past – commentary

Allusion with Guest Editor Allyson Whipple

Though the writing of haiku is often a solitary act, each individual effort is part of a centuries-old tradition that is bound up in a larger collective impulse. Allusion allows us to be in dialogue with both the past and present, focused within the world of literature or expanding out to broader cultural memory. Using allusion also reminds us that nobody creates in a vacuum; our poetic selves are comprised of all we have written, studied, and experienced. Over the next several weeks, we will focus on writing allusive haiku that foster our sense of a global haiku collective.

Below is Allyson’s commentary for Connections to the Past:

Thanks to everyone who sent their poetry for this first prompt in the Allusion series. I loved seeing the ways in which poets responded to their chosen seed poems. I hope these eleven short-listed poems resonate with you as much as they did with me.

a nightingale —
my sandals stuck
in field mud

Bonchō

a tree warbler —
my ankles deep
in stinging nettles

Lori Kiefer
United Kingdom

In this haiku, Lori Kiefer invokes Bonchō’s poem by invoking a similar structure, but changing key details in a way that changes the sense of discomfort that permeates the poem. In the original haiku, the pleasant sound of a nightingale’s call is contrasted with the discomfort of one’s feet being stuck in deep mud. (As someone who once ended up hip-deep in pluff mud, I feel Bonchō acutely here.) Both the nightingale and the tree warbler denote summer in the UK, but tree warbler suggests a different time of day. Although nightingales technically sing all day, they’re associated with the evening. Since warblers are most active in the morning, Lori’s haiku suggests the early hours of the day. Bonchō’s poem creates a sense of anxiety: it’s the end of the day, and being literally stuck in the mud increases the difficulty of reaching home (or wherever he was sleeping) in a timely manner. Lori Kiefer’s work, on the other hand, creates a less acute but nonetheless pervasive anxiety: it’s only morning, and already we’re stuck in unpleasant stinging nettles with no clear path out. There’s a long day, and a long road, ahead.

the footprints
of a man—
first cherry blossoms

Chiyo-jo

found blooming crocus
on snow she fingers
his name

Richard L. Matta
San Diego, CA, USA

I appreciate a subtle allusion that makes me pause and think. In his response to Chiyo-jo’s poem, Richard L. Matta avoids the classical spring kigo and instead places us in the transitional period between seasons. There’s snow on the ground, but the blooming crocus lets us know that spring is definitely on the way. I think the true allusion here lies in the theme of impermanence. Whatever reading we might read into the man’s footsteps in Chiyo-jo’s poem, we know that those footprints he leaves behind will sooner or later disappear. Either they will be covered by another layer of blossoms, the wind will blow them away, or they’ll be washed off in the rain. In Richard’s poem, a woman uses her fingers to write a man’s name in the snow. But just as a name in the sand will be washed away by waves, a name in the snow is destined to disappear. Because we’re nearing spring, the suggestion is that the name of this special person will melt away. While it’s always fun to be able to identify an allusion right away, I think it’s also worth recognizing the haiku that make you stop and think rather than reaching the reference immediately.

spring to spring…
feeling the same
and different

Gekkyo

cherry blossoms
two centuries later
feeling like Gekkyo

Sébastien Revon
Ireland

After using a classical spring kigo to place his poem in the same season as Gekkyo’s original, Sébastien Revon presents us with a paradox. He says he is ‘feeling like Gekkyo,’ but of course, that’s a leap of poetic license. This is where the allusion comes in: in saying he feels like Gekkyo, Sébastien is invoking the ‘same / and different’ aspect of the original haiku. Yet it’s impossible to say that he truly felt like Gekkyo, as there is no way to know what he was truly feeling. Sébastien has taken the allusion to another level: not only does he feel the same yet different year to year, he feels the same yet different as the original poet. He resonates with the tone and message of the poem, but by virtue of 200 years and 2 different lives, we cannot say there is a 1:1 correspondence. Sébastien has done fantastic work of not just making an allusion, but upping the ante on the original.

dawn—
the call of whales
from beneath the sea

Gyōdai

anthropocene—
the call of whales
silenced

Elizabeth Shack
Illinois, USA

The primary allusive method in Elizabeth Shack’s haiku is to repeat the second line directly. She then builds on Gyōdai’s original by a skillful language change in the first line. In the original poem, ‘dawn’ most likely refers to the time of day. The term “anthropocene” refers to the recent period of time when the activities of humans have made a significant impact on the ecosystems and climate of our planet. Starting with ‘anthropocene’ places us not in a specific part of the day, but rather a specific period in the vast expanse of geologic time. In a single word, Elizabeth conveys the human impact on the planet as a whole. In the last line, the whales are not heard, but silenced. To me, this haiku is not just a strong example of allusion, but also a demonstration of skillful political poetry.

pampas grass
takes the form
of the autumn wind

Kigin

bridge wing
her hair blown
in the shape of the wind

Govind Joshi
Dehradun, India

Govind Joshi takes us from Kigin’s riparian setting to a true nautical one. Rather than being in the transition point between land and water, ‘bridge wing’ tells us we’re on a boat, putting us squarely in the water. Both of these haiku find ways to give form to the shapeless wind. True pampas grass is actually a flowering plant, and so rather than stick-straight hair, I picture a woman with voluminous locks. In my imagination, the subject of the poem has tangled waves with thinner strands of flyaway hair blowing free from the rest. Both of these poems present compelling imagery of form attempting to provide definition to the formless. Govind’s use of allusion really sparks the imagination.

a dog’s bark—
a man passes in
the snowy night

Meimei

police siren—
a man passes
in the frozen night

Mark Gilbert
United Kingdom

Reading Mark Gilbert’s haiku made me see Meimei’s original in a new light. At first, I had interpreted ‘passes’ in the sense of “passes by.” While that might have been the original intention, Mark’s work made me realize that ‘passes’ also could mean that the man dies. The police siren invokes for me the image of an urban neighborhood similar to my own, where unhoused people struggle to survive the cold winter. The emergency vehicle and the freezing temperature invoke a sense of death. While the image I conjure up might not be exactly what Mark had intended, his poem speaks to the suggestive power of clear, intentional language. Although we obviously cannot ask Meimei about the original intent of this haiku, that Mark made me reconsider my entire view of the original poem means it merits inclusion on the short list.

its body ends
in emptiness —
cicada

Saimu

until the end
of the carnal world
a single chirp

Barbara Anna Gaiardoni
Verona, Italy

The earliest fossil evidence for cicadas places them existing somewhere between 40 million and 250 million years ago – long enough to be buzzing around and annoying dinosaurs. They were on the planet long before humans and, like cockroaches, are likely to remain here long after we do. Saimu’s original poem invokes the Heart Sutra’s mantra that “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” Barbara Anna’s use of ‘the carnal world’ places us squarely on the human plane, full of our successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses. Many of our species take a dualistic view of humanity and nature: there is the human, and there is the cicada (with the implication that the human is better). Yet we cannot escape the cicada; even in dense cities, they make their presence known. The Heart Sutra encourages us to embrace nonduality; Barbara Anna’s haiku reminds us that we are not separate from the creatures that we often consider pests. They will be at the end of our world – and likely survive beyond it.

folks sleeping —
nothing between me
and the moon

Seifu-jo

a rainy night
between me and the moon
your darkness

Alex Fyffe
Texas, USA

Alex Fyffe uses the phrase ‘between me and the moon’ as the allusive focus of his haiku, but then juxtaposes his poem with the original. While Seifu-jo emphasizes a sense of spaciousness in her haiku, in Alex’s haiku, there is rain. Already, we know there is something between the poet and the moon in the form of rain clouds. In Seifu-jo’s poem, the sleeping people emphasize that sense of spaciousness. The house is quiet, and nobody is talking or making demands; the mood is not colored by the presence of other people. In Alex’s poem, the dark tone doubles the effect of the dark sky. Perhaps the person that ‘your’ refers to is going through a period of emotional turmoil late into the night. Perhaps the speaker and subject are having an argument, and the speaker wants to escape to somewhere more spacious. Or perhaps the object of attention is asleep, but their troubles nonetheless permeate the atmosphere of the home, creating a sense of oppression.

overnight on the line
drying my underwear—
the Milky Way

Sōchō

midday laundry —
my bra cups filling
with sky

Nalini Shetty
Mumbai, India

Nalini Shetty’s haiku inverts Sōchō’s original. Rather than overnight, the laundry is drying at midday (a more fitting time to hang laundry, in my opinion). Nalini takes Sōchō’s broader term ‘underwear’ and hones in on the specificity of ‘bra cups’ – not the bra as a whole, not the straps, but the cups. Sōchō has a sense of distance between the sky and his underwear – the Milky Way might be drying his clothing, but it’s still up, farther away. In Nalini’s haiku, the sky comes down close to fill her bra cups. With a focus on underwear serving as the allusive linchpin, she creates a poem that connects to the past but becomes entirely her own.

mosquito larvae
the sunshine
on stagnant water

Taigi

rain barrel—
a shimmer of gnats
spinning in light

Sandip Chauhan
Great Falls, VA, USA

Sandip Chauhan takes similar images from Taigi’s source haiku and adds a sense of physical dimension to their response. Both poems contain a sense of movement. Although in Taigi’s haiku the water is stagnant, the mosquito larvae are wriggling below the surface, with the sun illuminating their movement. I personally find wriggling larvae unpleasant to look at, but that’s where the juxtaposition comes in: the beautiful sun shining on something visually unpleasant. In Sandip’s poem, the rain barrel is another source of stagnant water, though it has different connotations. Perhaps the water is not ideal for drinking, but it could be useful for watering the garden. Gnats create swarms that sometimes resemble starling murmurations. As with mosquito larvae, I find any sort of insect cloud unsettling at best. Yet Sandip manages to recapture that moment of beauty. I picture a strong shaft of sunlight illuminating these flying bugs. And while you have to presumably look down to see Taigi’s writhing larvae, the gnats are more vertical, spiraling in the light. Through precise use of language, Sandip not only creates a strong allusion, but also expands on the dimensional effect of the original poem.

a traveler
drops in some coins —
the clear water

Tairo

a tourist
tosses foreign quarters —
monk’s begging bowl

Mimi Dollinger
Denver, CO, USA

In Mimi Dollinger’s haiku, we have allusive elements that are similar yet different from the source text, which allows the response poem to strike a different tone. On the surface, there’s not much difference between a traveler and a tourist. However, you don’t often hear the locals complaining about travelers, while we’re all familiar with complaints about tourists. A tourist doesn’t necessarily bother to learn local customs or language; they don’t always respect cultural values. Mimi’s haiku presents a careless tourist who drops what is presumably their own currency into a begging bowl. Not only is the currency useless to the monk, but a begging bowl is often for food, not money. The tourist is completely lacking in awareness of what the monk really needs. Mimi takes the image of Tairo’s peace and creates a profound image with broader cultural implications.

Join us next week for our next prompt…

Bios:

Guest Editor Allyson Whipple is the author of the haiku chapbook Postcards from Texas (Cuttlefish Books), as well as two free-verse chapbooks. She is the founding editor of Haiku Girl Summer and currently serves as the managing editor of Frogpond, and is at work on her reference work The Culinary Saijiki.

Assistant Editor Lafcadio, a former teacher, now works from home writing, editing and proofreading study guides for nursing textbooks. She lives in Tennessee. She has written poetry for a long time but a couple of years ago fell in love with Japanese micropoetry and hasn’t looked back. Lafcadio has been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She writes under the nom de plume of Lafcadio because nom de plume is so fun to say. You can read her poems on Twitter (X) @lafcadiopoetry or BlueSky @lafcadiobsky.

Assistant Editor Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, I Am, was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook Alone, I Am Not, was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. She lives in New York City and enjoys reading and writing haiku.

Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She served as Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada for ten years, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.

Portrait by Laurel Parry

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Photo Credit:

Banner photo credit: “Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals”, mid 1700s. Attributed to Tatebayashi Kagei (Japanese, active mid-1700s). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1960.183.

Haiku Dialogue offers a triweekly prompt for practicing your haiku. Posts appear each Wednesday with a prompt or a selection of poems from a previous week.