re:Virals 496

Welcome to re:Virals, The Haiku Foundation’s weekly commentary feature on some of your favorites among the best contemporary haiku and senryu written in English, hosted by Keith Evetts (managing editor) and Melissa Dennison.  In the seat today is Keith.  This week’s poem, chosen by Amoolya Kamalnath, was:

   
show & tell...
a handful of coins
from his homeland 
— Barrie Levine
  Golden Haiku 2025
  Washington Golden Triangle

Introducing this poem, Amoolya Kamalnath writes:

Each coin has its own significance, its own story, an experience, other than being from his homeland & other than the significance of each coin, everyone would agree with the significance of their homeland, especially one who’s not in their homeland at the moment. Today let’s see what each poet will show and tell about the coins from their own homeland.

Opening comment (Keith):

A senryu of a few plain words, readily comprehensible, that carry weighty associations. No cleverness, no gimmickry, no head-scratching disruption, no striving to be lyrical in the tradition of English poetics as contrasted with those of the detached and scrutable East.

We are set straight away in elementary school, where a young boy has brought a few (“a handful of”) coins to “show & tell,” frequently the start to a school day or lesson.  Ah, but they are from his homeland: we deduce a foreign boy, now residing in a country new to him. And immediately a range of thoughts well up in the reader. That familiar coins of the host country would not be novel and interesting to the class, as strange coins from another land would be. That the coins valued as tender in the boy’s homeland are of no use or value in his new country. That the boy may have had nothing else to offer of interest than these few coins he has. That in his unfamiliar new country, he misses his homeland. That coins, like stamps, are a trapping of national sovereignty. That perhaps he is proud of his homeland, even defiant about it. That feelings of national pride among the children of his host country might well result in his being teased or belittled in the playground, afterward… We empathise, we feel for the boy, we are concerned for him.

Not least, in a genre where the mantra is “show, don’t tell,” we have the mild haikai humour that in the ensuing phrase the poet is doing just what she oughter: not “showing and telling” but telling by showing. The coins, the homeland, tell a little story, as so many haiku and senryu do.  The melliflous phrase “A handful of coins from his homeland” could be the start and/or end of a short story. It is for the reader to write it.  See Dan and Jonathan below!

For a tangential digression into symbolism, and for a coin collection of verses, see the Footnote.

Sitarama Seshu Maringanti:

The symbolism of coins with a person’s homeland is quite telling. The poet Barrie Levine uses the medium of coins in the Golden Haiku to convey to us that a person’s emotional bond and patriotic affinity with his native country is intensely evoked when he looks at the coins on a foreign soil. That coins take the place of the National Flag and National Anthem is something that is left unsaid in this beautiful haiku.

Jennifer Gurney:

I love Barrie’s poem that was chosen for the wonderful Washington Golden Triangle poetry contest. I used to live in DC ages ago, before the contest began. The very idea of poems on placards in the medians of sidewalks where passers-by can stop to read and enjoy poetry amidst their busy days and lives is spectacular. Having had a poem selected last year was one of those lifetime joy-filled moments. So to see Barrie’s poem here for comment was lovely.

As a teacher, and a former student back in the day myself, I’m very familiar with the concept of show and tell. For many of us, it is a universal experience, which draws the reader into this poem quickly and adeptly. How often have we seen a young child bringing a piece of their lives into the classroom as a way of sharing themself with their community? How often have we done that very thing ourselves? Our way of saying “this is me. I’m opening up myself to you.”  What a brave act it is, each and every time. Barrie speaks to the universal experience of sharing ourselves with others in her opening line.

In this poem, the young shower-teller dips his hand into his pocket to retrieve his treasure. He has coins from his country of origin to share. The use of the word “homeland” is interesting to me. It makes me think this child lived in another country and is an immigrant to our own. However, it could be his homeland by heritage, a country he’s never even visited. I, for example, am half Irish and half German. Although I’ve lived for over six decades, I’ve never visited either homeland. However, I do have a few euros in my jar of coins from around the world, which I guess would qualify now as “coins from her homeland” if I were doing show and tell.

The timeliness of this poem is poignant. The use of the word “homeland” connects with all of the political strife over immigration via the current U.S. administration. It also ties to the Homeland Security Act which was enacted after 9-11 and has myriad connotations for us all.

Amidst all of this deep and rich meaning as background for the reader, this poem is a gentle spring afternoon, alighting on our hearts like a newly emerged butterfly. Barrie’s poem shows such grace, dignity and quiet respect for a young boy who holds out his hand to show his heritage to the class in the form of coins. His silent gesture speaks volumes. See me. Hear me. Know me. Accept me. What a brave act, indeed.

Thank you, Barrie, for this beautiful poem. It will live in this teacher’s heart forever.

Dan Campbell:

Thoughts on a Poem About Coins by Carlos,  An Immigrant from El Salvador

You ever hold a handful of coins and feel like you’re holding your whole life? Cold against the skin. That faint metallic smell — like time pressed into your palm. Like ghosts of every hand that held them before. Yeah. That feeling.

This poem really gets to me. When you leave home, you don’t take much with you. Just what fits in your pockets — a few coins. A key that doesn’t open any door anymore. A folded piece of paper with a phone number you’ve memorized but can’t throw away. Small things. That’s all you have left.

But these coins… these aren’t just coins. They’re from El Salvador. Colones. They don’t even use them anymore — switched to the dollar years ago. But I keep them anyway. Can’t spend them. Can’t exchange them. But I hold onto them because they mean something. Proof that I was there once, that I come from somewhere.
I remember the sound of them. The way they’d rattle in my mother’s purse when we walked to the market. The soft clink when my father paid for pan dulce on Sundays. Sounds you don’t even notice until they’re gone — and then you realize how much they mattered.

“Show & tell” – That’s where it starts. A kid standing in front of the class, holding up some treasure from home, trying to explain why it matters. You show people pieces of who you are — your food, your music, your accent — but you don’t tell them the whole story. Not because you don’t want to. But because where do you even start? How do you explain what it’s like to carry another place inside you — to live in one world while another hums quietly in your corazon?

“a handful of coins” – That’s the part that gets you. Not just any coins. Not just spare change. A piece of the place you left behind. The place that made you. I think about my abuela sometimes — how she used to give me a few colones to buy tamales from the street vendor. I didn’t know then how much those little moments would matter. That’s the thing about leaving home — you don’t just leave a place. You leave a whole version of yourself behind. And you carry pieces of it with you — in coins, in songs, in the way you say certain words.

“from his homeland” – This poem — it knows. It knows what it’s like to live between worlds. To laugh, to eat, to talk — and all the while, you’re holding something small and heavy in your pocket. No one sees it. But you know it’s there. When you leave home, you learn to live in two worlds. You speak the language of where you are, but you dream in the language of where you came from. You smile and say you’re fine — but in your pocket, you’re holding the weight of home.

Sudha Devi Nayak:

Memories of a homeland that once was his now translate to a few mementos that spell nostalgia. Lifestyle has changed, habitation has changed, faces are strangers, different skies, and yet the coins represent a stability, a sanity in his life. The freedom, the fresh air, the love of kin, the pride of the fatherland. Perhaps he dreams of a return some day.

Nostagia and longing are powerful emotions which revere the past and value memory. He would like to tell and show friends he makes among strangers the symbols of beloved things he left behind. The rootlessness gives way to reconciliation.   The haiku reminds us we are made of memories, it is not easy to forget and start afresh. I recall another haiku I saw on the poetry stone in a Japanese garden in Portland in Oregon: “Here, miles from Japan I stand / as if warmed by the spring sunshine of home”

Lakshmi Iyer:

I remember summer holidays at my paternal and maternal grandparents’ house.  I rush to the backyard to collect my favourite flowers or leaves or stones or broken pieces of pots…nothing so interesting, but to paste them in my scrap book and show off to my friends.

There have been times when father would have travelled far and wide and returned with stamps and coins. Yes, these intrigued me! I still possess them.

‘Show and tell’ is an experience of the larger window of life. It is a dialogue between the creator and his creation. A sense of belonging and connectivity. The longing to aspire for that inquisitiveness and persuasion to hold what isn’t and yet lives.
The poet’s sense of satisfaction is visible in his ‘handful of coins from his homeland ‘ – nothing much to cry upon, it is the truth! No more, no less! And yet sometimes we are left behind, totally lost in ignorance.

Isn’t it ironic that sometimes ‘show not tell’ may not always be what one is seeking/ seeing?

Thank you Barrie!

Jonathan Epstein—the paucity of what remains:

I enter this senryu imaginatively, an observer in an American first-grade classroom. It’s early Monday morning. Eager six-year olds cluster cross-legged on a carpet, arms raised high with hands waving for attention, cries of “Me, me, me!” Scanning faces, the teacher makes a surprise choice, a shy boy she calls Steven because she can’t pronounce his given name. It’s the first time he has raised his hand this semester. He stands and faces his classmates, reaches into a pants pocket and pulls out “a handful of coins from his homeland.“

In hesitant, accented English he explains that he carried the coins with him when he came to America a year ago. He still keeps them in his pocket — for luck.

The foreign coins pass from palm to palm. “Why are they all shiny?” asks a girl. “Pencil eraser,” Steven says. “Every day I shine them.” Then —“What can you buy with this one?” A boy holds up a silver coin. “One Apple.”

Students now understand that Steven’s country of origin has its own kind of money and apples are cheap there. While Steven’s sharing helps bridge the gap between him and his classmates, none of them can ‘grok’ what it is like to be a stranger in a strange land.

Though the hand in this image can as well belong to an adult, the ‘scene’ is more poignant as part of an immigrant child’s early rite of passage through the process of cultural assimilation. The alliterative h’s in “a handful of coins from his homeland” give a sense of breath, aliveness, to the far flung ‘homeland.’ There is irony — and pathos — knowing this 2025 Golden Haiku will be displayed on a street in Washington D.C., command post for elected officials and political appointees keen on deporting illegal immigrants. The current fraught atmosphere contrasts with the (imagined) boy in the verse, who is likely engaging in an exchange of stories among welcoming, trusting individuals.

This affecting verse showcases the Show & Tell power of senryu to portray aspects of the human condition with a light touch. The coins, a symbol of wealth or power, lack their former purchasing power; they are now mementos of a defunct way of life and a trigger for remembering all that was left behind in the ’homeland.’ The inconceivable loss that new immigrants carry with them — the forfeiture of identity, stability, respect, family left behind, community ties — is here suggested by the image of “a handful of coins,” a spotlight not so much on loss as the paucity of what remains.

Author Barrie Levine:

I tried to put myself into the mind and heart of a child who bravely offered to make a presentation at show & tell. My little grandson is half-Russian and I imagined him in his childhood innocence sharing a prized possession in the spotlight. I wanted to set the stage with an easily visualized location, a grade school classroom, followed by the sound of coins landing on the table and the sight of glinting metal.

I hoped to portray the pride the young boy in the poem felt in standing up on his own to reveal something personal and special, not only his coin collection but the place he came from, although under circumstances that are not revealed. If there are complications in his status, I left that in the background, but in our times we are right to wonder about the existence of a problematic international journey.

This boy is not necessarily a collector; he is simply sharing memories from his earlier childhood, wherever that might have been. In these troubled times, perhaps he was not aware that something “foreign” might arouse ridicule or even worse.  Instead, he was willing to reveal his connection to his country of origin, its language and culture.

I composed this haiku before I had learned of the “Bridges of Belonging” theme for the 2025 Golden Haiku Contest. The poem seemed on point for the theme, showing the value of providing a safe space in which to foster genuine interest, respect for diversity, and sensitivity to others.

Thanks to all who sent commentaries. As the contributor of the commentary reckoned best this week in a strong field, Jonathan has chosen next week’s poem, which you’ll find below. We invite you to write a commentary to it. It may be short, or of moderate length, academic, your personal response, spontaneous, or idiosyncratic.  As long as it focuses on the verse presented, and with respect for the poet, all genuine reader reaction, criticism, and pertinent discussion is of value.   Out-takes are kept in the THF Archives.  Best of all, the chosen commentary’s author gets to pick the next poem.

Anyone can participate. Simply use the re:Virals commentary form below to enter your commentary on the new week’s poem (“Your text”) by the following Tuesday midnight, Eastern US Time Zone, and then press Submit to send your entry. The Submit button will not be available until Name, Email, and Place of Residence fields are filled in. We look forward to seeing your commentary and finding out about your favourite poems.

Poem for commentary:

     
patiently waiting
for sunlight on its flanks
undersea mountain 
—Rob Barkan
 Haiku Dialogue, March 12, 2025

The Haiku Foundation reminds you that participation in our offerings assumes respectful and appropriate behavior from all parties. Please see our Code of Conduct policy.

Footnote:

Bio:
After Barrie Levine retired from her Massachusetts law practice in 2018, she started a blog at barrielevine.com entitled 72 is the New 72, a collection of “personal essays for my thoughtful peers.” Freed from professional responsibilities, she discovered her long-hidden creativity by writing haiku poetry. She has appeared in numerous online and print journals and has established connections with the worldwide community of haiku poets through weekly online workshops and mentoring new poets through the Haiku Society of America. She will be featured in the upcoming A New Resonance 14: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku edited by Jim Kacian and Julie Schwerin. A brief account of milestones in her life’s journey – and this most important chapter, her haiku journey – can be found here in her blog.

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Digression (but not far…)

Lately I have been pondering the subject of symbolism in haiku. Blyth in his History of Haiku, part 1, writes that “it is necessary to state with some vehemence that haiku is not symbolic, that is, not a portrayal of natural phenomena with some meaning behind them.” And: “There is no separation between the thing and its meaning, no finding the universal in particular natural objects, or human beings.”

There is something to be said for the view that the image itself is the poem. After all, no other words can adequately convey the presence of a kingfisher, the blackbird’s song,  a spring sunrise, or the smell of old books.  And there’s much to be said for detachment and directness:  in haiku, the less the images are mediated by and through the poet, who simply—and artfully—selects and transmits them, the better.  A notion that would be challenged by poets who set store by distortion or disruption to achieve an effect.

Blyth’s view, and similar views of some others, are  derived from the Zen (and Daoist) approach of mushin (無心): “no mind.”  Yet in a medium where we are communicating by characters, you can’t get away from symbols.  Haiku is not “the wordless poem” of Alan Watts’ mesmeric presentation — though I think I know what he meant by those borrowed words.  See Eric Amman’s well-argued The Wordless Poem and, well  before that, Archibald McLeish’s Ars Poetica (“A poem should be wordless / As the flight of birds”) “Streets in the Moon,” 1926.  When Bashō urges us to go to the pine…  I write “pine” — and at once anyone who has seen and smelt a pine tree, the rough bark, the wood grain, the knots, the resin, the sharp needles at the ends of branches and the soft carpet of decaying needles below, the forest, the darkness, and heard the sound of the wind through the sparse foliage, knows what I know and what I mean.  That is the “wordlessness” of “pine” —that the one-word image prompts many thoughts. I am not deliberately using it to convey any abstract notion such as beauty, honesty, nostalgia, or even change and transience, gloom or death. But pine, like most of our words, does acquire depth of meaning through cumulative experience, usage, and associations.  It becomes suggestive of other things, as oak suggests endurance, aspen fear, fireflies love (or war), autumn leaves ageing and ‘passing.’  Blyth and Watts may state emphatically of haiku that “you should not look here for any symbolism.”  In other words, to receive the haiku poem a reader too must empty the mind. “Thusness” to them is all, it is enough.  But for the mindful as contrasted with the mindless,  the meaningful as compared with the meaningless,  symbols are present whatever they say.  For examples of symbolism in haiku, you need look no further than kigo.  For an example in Zen, the enso.

Haruo Shirane in ‘Beyond the Haiku Moment’ writes: “If haiku is to rise to the level of serious poetry, literature that is widely respected and admired, that is taught and studied, commentated on, that can have impact on other non-haiku poets, then it must have a complexity that gives it depth and that allows it to both focus on and rise above the specific moment or time. Basho, Buson and other masters achieved this through various forms of textual density, including metaphor, allegory, symbolism and allusion, as well as through the constant search for new topics.”

And the Matsuyama Declaration—which invokes the name of Shiki and carries a ministerial stamp of approval, for what it may be worth: “haiku can be described as being a universal poem whose essential part is expressed by ‘symbolism.'”

Michael Dylan Welch writes: “haiku… rely on the reader to have a common, universal response to the object or event portrayed. It is thus the haiku poet’s burden to choose and craft his or her image to generate that reliably universal response.”

That’s the way Barrie has done it. Make up your own minds about whether ‘coins’ symbolise more than small circular metal objects, or ‘homeland’ more than an original map reference.

Lastly, “universal” is not always universal, that is, in the sense that it is something common to all in this world. To the extent that a poet picks a restrictive topic, or a highly local or cultural image or word, a poem loses some universality and becomes, for those who have not shared that experience, more a curiosity (but not less a poem—just a poem that fewer readers ‘feel’).  Coins of some sort are fairly universal. At least, before this age of the digital wallet and electronic debit that are rapidly making coinage a thing of the past.  “Show & tell / the rich kid’s / digital wallet” —doesn’t quite have the ring…

Your views?

Coin collection:

Recent:

Three I like very much:

angling a penny
to see 1969
autumn sun
—Alan S. Bridges
Modern Haiku 55.1 February 2024 and the current Red Moon Anthology ‘telling the bees’

long walk home
the rhythm
of small change
—Ravi Kiran
The Heron’s Nest Volume XXVI, Number 2: June 2024 (and Red Moon Anthology ‘telling the bees’)

a quarter
worn smooth by many hands
toll booth change
— Joseph P. Wechselberger
Kokaku 42.1 Spring 2025

One with a direct simile:
Summer rain:
the first fat drops
like coins in the dust
—Bart Mesotten, “Coins in the Dust,” Red Moon Press 2013

And under the auspices of Haiku Dialogue guest editor Craig Kittner in 2019 a whole range of them in response to the prompt ‘a smooth coin.’