in the beginning he was just pretending to sound grumpy — John Stevenson, Frogpond 45.1, 2021/22
Well, we have three days of May left. I already sneaked in two haiku in the past tense. Now we have three more. Today’s, by John Stevenson, is a favourite of mine. There can be no quibbling about the tense, no question about translation. It appeared in re:Virals 348, four years ago.
I commented: “I wonder whether many editors would have taken the time to consider this verse had it been submitted by a fresh unknown. It’s a single sentence, a statement, barely contains an image, no real ‘cut,’ written in a past tense… John Stevenson is a true master, able to let go the handrail of procedure in order to embrace the spirit of the tradition. He has his own, distinctive voice. Quite a few of his haiku and senryu are in the form of a sentence. …
From the suggestions in this senryu, the reader supplies the completion and the present: juxtaposing “in the beginning he was…” with a mental “but now…”; and “just pretending…” with “has actually become grumpy.” It has universality — many readers can relate in some way; and there are layers to contemplate. There is the obvious one of developing grumpiness with age, the accelerating bodily pains and memory lapses, the growing irritation as the world that you grew familiar with changes yet again. Then there is the obverse of “positive thinking,” or “neurolinguistic programming,” or whatever the coming generation’s version of it turns out to be: that through repetition you may actually become what you say, what you sound like. I went on to think how, for example, marital relations can deteriorate in a cycle of grumbling at each other, that may begin as teasing humour, but gradually becomes an entrenched, bitter, hurtful habit. The opening line “in the beginning” also invokes Genesis (or the gospel of John…), and if you are a believer it’s not too fanciful to suppose that the Almighty humoured his human creation to begin with, but by now is seriously annoyed with us. Storms, fires, floods and plague.”
I’d just like to return to the point that the reader supplies the present. Having examined many verses set unequivocally in the past, my working conclusion is that the poet is still in the present moment, revisiting or reliving a past experience, even if the text is definitely in a past tense. The poet is sharing that past with the reader, in the present. The reader is reconstructing and contemplating the insight in the ‘present moment.’ And quite frequently, especially if a haiku/senryu in the past tense is cut at the end, it is an invitation to the reader to complete the unspoken part of the haiku in the present.
Thus we have seen Issa: “I borrowed my cottage from the fleas and mosquitoes and slept!” Reader: “…you/he must have been really exhausted to sleep through those pests!” Hekigoto: “until I hit the fly there was no fly-swatter—” Reader: “…but there is now”
and today: Stevenson: “in the beginning he was just pretending to sound grumpy…” Reader: “…but now he’s really become a grumpy old man”
If we accept that the reader may be invited to co-create or complete the circle of a haiku, then the reader may be permitted—or expected—to complete the circle in the present. Surely. Which means that sometimes we can write them in the past, in such a way as to invite completion with a phrase in the present. Or a verse indubitably in a past tense, such as Susan Antolin’s Touchstone-winning “the mother my summer died”, is clearly a present recollection of that singularly upsetting time, a memory still vivid, raw and upsetting, that may well prompt a reader to revisit, right now, a similar memory of their own.
Fascinating how we can use verbs and verb tenses in haiku in different ways, and perhaps in different ways to other types of poems?
I found at least two haiku that are deliberately placed into the past as a verb tense, yet they also linger in the present between memory and something hovering in parallel to the present like an echo perhaps.
e.g.
creeping sepia a dog that outran the wind
Alan Summers Publication credit: Presence issue #71 (2021) ed. Ian Storr
Anthology credit: Fractured by Cattails The Haiku Society of America 2023 Members’ Anthology ed. Allyson Whipple
i.e. that last click slid from a lucid dream daybreaker crow
.
colder times a last cat huddles into the moon
Alan Summers Publication credit: Nick Virgilio Haiku Association Haiku in Action (December 5th – Dec 12th 2020)
Anthology: Nick Virgilio Writers House Poetry A Year in Poems Haiku in Action vol 2 2020 (pub. Nick Virgilio Haiku Association)
i.e.
colder times a last cat huddled into the moon
.
postman’s whistle the starling’s bill changes to black
Alan Summers Publication credit: Presence #68 (November 2020) ed. Ian Storr
Feature/essay/article: What is natural history haiku? Blo͞o Outlier Journal issue 3 the natural history haiku edition (Summer 2022) ed. Alan Summers dedicated to Gene Murtha
in the beginning
he was just pretending
to sound grumpy
— John Stevenson, Frogpond 45.1, 2021/22
Well, we have three days of May left. I already sneaked in two haiku in the past tense. Now we have three more. Today’s, by John Stevenson, is a favourite of mine. There can be no quibbling about the tense, no question about translation. It appeared in re:Virals 348, four years ago.
I commented:
“I wonder whether many editors would have taken the time to consider this verse had it been submitted by a fresh unknown. It’s a single sentence, a statement, barely contains an image, no real ‘cut,’ written in a past tense… John Stevenson is a true master, able to let go the handrail of procedure in order to embrace the spirit of the tradition. He has his own, distinctive voice. Quite a few of his haiku and senryu are in the form of a sentence. …
From the suggestions in this senryu, the reader supplies the completion and the present: juxtaposing “in the beginning he was…” with a mental “but now…”; and “just pretending…” with “has actually become grumpy.” It has universality — many readers can relate in some way; and there are layers to contemplate. There is the obvious one of developing grumpiness with age, the accelerating bodily pains and memory lapses, the growing irritation as the world that you grew familiar with changes yet again. Then there is the obverse of “positive thinking,” or “neurolinguistic programming,” or whatever the coming generation’s version of it turns out to be: that through repetition you may actually become what you say, what you sound like. I went on to think how, for example, marital relations can deteriorate in a cycle of grumbling at each other, that may begin as teasing humour, but gradually becomes an entrenched, bitter, hurtful habit. The opening line “in the beginning” also invokes Genesis (or the gospel of John…), and if you are a believer it’s not too fanciful to suppose that the Almighty humoured his human creation to begin with, but by now is seriously annoyed with us. Storms, fires, floods and plague.”
I’d just like to return to the point that the reader supplies the present. Having examined many verses set unequivocally in the past, my working conclusion is that the poet is still in the present moment, revisiting or reliving a past experience, even if the text is definitely in a past tense. The poet is sharing that past with the reader, in the present. The reader is reconstructing and contemplating the insight in the ‘present moment.’ And quite frequently, especially if a haiku/senryu in the past tense is cut at the end, it is an invitation to the reader to complete the unspoken part of the haiku in the present.
Thus we have seen
Issa: “I borrowed my cottage from the fleas and mosquitoes and slept!”
Reader: “…you/he must have been really exhausted to sleep through those pests!”
Hekigoto: “until I hit the fly there was no fly-swatter—”
Reader: “…but there is now”
and today:
Stevenson: “in the beginning he was just pretending to sound grumpy…”
Reader: “…but now he’s really become a grumpy old man”
If we accept that the reader may be invited to co-create or complete the circle of a haiku, then the reader may be permitted—or expected—to complete the circle in the present. Surely. Which means that sometimes we can write them in the past, in such a way as to invite completion with a phrase in the present. Or a verse indubitably in a past tense, such as Susan Antolin’s Touchstone-winning “the mother my summer died”, is clearly a present recollection of that singularly upsetting time, a memory still vivid, raw and upsetting, that may well prompt a reader to revisit, right now, a similar memory of their own.
Fascinating how we can use verbs and verb tenses in haiku in different ways, and perhaps in different ways to other types of poems?
I found at least two haiku that are deliberately placed into the past as a verb tense, yet they also linger in the present between memory and something hovering in parallel to the present like an echo perhaps.
e.g.
creeping sepia
a dog that outran
the wind
Alan Summers
Publication credit: Presence issue #71 (2021) ed. Ian Storr
Anthology credit:
Fractured by Cattails
The Haiku Society of America 2023 Members’ Anthology
ed. Allyson Whipple
Verb tense: Past Simple
creeping sepia seasonal reference/modern kigo:
https://haikubasecamp.wordpress.com/2022/06/12/96/
end of the day
the bootlaces tucked
into their own home
Alan Summers
Publication credit:
tsuri-dōrō – a small journal of haiku and senryū (Inaugural issue, Jan/Feb 2021)
ed. Tony Pupello
Verb tense: Past Simple
.
present into past:
that last click
sliding from a lucid dream
daybreaker crow
Alan Summers
Publication credit: Hedgerow #133 ed. Caroline Skanne (December 2020)
i.e.
that last click
slid from a lucid dream
daybreaker crow
.
colder times
a last cat huddles
into the moon
Alan Summers
Publication credit:
Nick Virgilio Haiku Association Haiku in Action (December 5th – Dec 12th 2020)
Anthology:
Nick Virgilio Writers House Poetry
A Year in Poems
Haiku in Action vol 2 2020
(pub. Nick Virgilio Haiku Association)
i.e.
colder times
a last cat huddled
into the moon
.
postman’s whistle the starling’s bill changes to black
Alan Summers
Publication credit: Presence #68 (November 2020) ed. Ian Storr
Feature/essay/article:
What is natural history haiku?
Blo͞o Outlier Journal issue 3
the natural history haiku edition (Summer 2022) ed. Alan Summers
dedicated to Gene Murtha
Article: Slip-Realism across the single line of haiku
https://www.whiptailjournal.com/_files/ugd/61a9c9_68970067ed8f44808e990d97f73b88e6.pdf
.
i.e.
postman’s whistle the starling’s bill changed to black
Sometimes it feels to me that a verb in past tense exists in the present as much as it does in the past, and a possible future too.
Alan: “Sometimes it feels to me that a verb in past tense exists in the present as much as it does in the past, and a possible future too.”
And in a whole haiku perhaps,
geese duly arrived—
how soon they will want to leave
Brent
And possibly a great view from The Office!
Alan