re:Virals 503
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 Melissa. This week’s poem, chosen by Raji Vijayaraghavan was:
graduation day— my son & i side by side knotting our ties —Lee Gurga Woodnotes 30 (1996); also: Gurga, In and Out of Fog (1997); Dallas Morning News (July 5, 1997; Lincoln, Illinois); Courier (January 7, 1998; The Bloomington (Illinois) Pantagraph (August 9, 1997)
Introducing this poem, Raji writes:
This haiku touched me for its imagery of a father-son duo sharing an intimate moment of tying their ties standing next to each other on a momentous day, making the event more special with memories tied to it that they could relish for a lifetime. This is equally true of both parents and their offspring irrespective of whether daughter or son, to share such moments of intimacy that would live in their memories forever to cherish and even more so when they are apart.
Opening comment: Melissa
This is a poem about parenthood, specifically the often complex relationship between father and son. The setting for the drama is graduation day, which is a milestone in anyone’s life, a threshold moment and often the beginning of a new chapter. However, the key to this haiku I think is in the second line where Lee writes ‘my son & i side by side’. What is noticeable is the way he places the son before the father. What does this mean? Could it refer to succession? – how his son is growing into a man and will one day replace him, which is the natural way of things. Of course this process of transition is subtle, happening almost imperceptibly, slowly over time. This realisation appears to be unfolding in real time – with the epiphany happening in line three, during the act of knotting ties.
Finally, there is another layer of meaning in that family businesses are often called ‘___ & sons’, and so line two can be interpreted as referring to this tradition, and turning it on its head.
Sudha Devi Nayak:
There is a note of poignancy in the haiku that set me thinking. Perhaps a working class father experiences all the trials of raising a child and funding his education with hopes in his heart and dreams in his eyes. The great day that he could only imagine has arrived and he is ready to share the moment of triumph with his son. His knotting a tie for the celebrated occasion talks of the immense pride he takes in his son’s achievement and the small ‘i’ he uses is his air of humility. Never having the opportunity to educate and succeed himself, he realises his aspirations and lives his dreams through his son. Every man expects his child to be a better edition of himself and meet his expectations. Children give us a sense of continuity. As parents we want to do the best for our children and hope they go beyond us in terms of success and fulfilment.
Lakshmi Iyer:
‘Graduation day’ is the biggest event for a kindergarten kid or for an adult. Here the first line with an em dash emphasises the long journey of the poet and his son. Often people laugh at a child, ‘so what?’ when he comes home saying its his graduation day.
The impact of the third line, ‘knotting our ties’ is the celebration of a lifetime’s relationship between a father and a son. The child always looks upon his father as a God-man and here the poet calls this a lifetime achievement.
This senryu unknowingly brings out the emotions of a relation that is indescribable and adorable! Now, this could be irony – if I say that maybe the poet had certain things to declare and determine that he too knew how to take care of himself and family…maybe??!!
Peter Yovu – Glimpsing the future:
One of those haiku that seems to have gathered itself from different points of observation and feeling, along with a degree of serendipity to produce something which appears to have been not so much written as transmitted from some essential and timeless moment at the heart of modern life. Though perhaps not so immediate for younger generations. It’s classic in the way some photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson are, or paintings by Norman Rockwell.
Not merely pictorial however, its verbal structure hints at, or leads one (leads me, anyway) to see a kind of vertical cut or mirroring which would not be evident in a photo or painting. I can see in the poem a possible reversal in each line which, while the results are awkward, retains their meaning, and amplifies the “mirroring” of father in son and son in father. (Especially in what comes out in the 3rd line, an easy transposition given the way the haiku is structured):
day of graduation—
side by side, my son and I
tying our knots
Did you, upon first reading this haiku, also hear “tying our knots” mirrored/echoed in its last line? Or is it just me?
In any event, though Lee Gurga has gone on to champion the kinds of haiku one finds in the Haiku 20__ series, edited by him and Scott Metz, this is one I am sure he is quite happy with.
Lee Gurga:
Well, about this I don’t have anything particularly profound to contribute. The event occurred on the day my oldest son graduated from 8th grade. We stood before the mirror and tied our ties together. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, but afterward I lay down to rest before we went to the ceremony and started thinking about what we had just done. It was only then that I realized that something extraordinary had happened. I don’t think I need to point out to anyone the fusion of the literal and the figurative here. I deliberately chose the ampersand to suggest a sign with a company name. In relation to the idea of a company sign, the “my son & I” is in the opposite order of what a company sign would normally be (Gurga & sons) and thus indicates that the son rather than the parent is the significant partner here.
Thanks to all who sent commentaries. As the contributor of the commentary reckoned best this week, Peter Yovu 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:
Rained from the morning’s Clear blue, Settling on peony petals, too Ash from Mt Asama. — Tito (Stephen Gill) Modern Haiku 40:1, 2009
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Footnote:
Lee Gurga has served as president of the Haiku Society of America (HSA) and editor of the journal Modern Haiku. He is currently editor of Modern Haiku Press. His books of haiku, In & Out of Fog and Fresh Scent, were awarded First Prize in the HSA Merit Book Awards; his Haiku: A Poet’s Guide was recognized by the HSA as the “Best Book of Criticism” for 2004. His anthology Haiku 21, co-edited with Scott Metz, was honored as “Best Anthology” by the HSA and with the Haiku Foundation’s “Touchstone Award.” Their anthology Haiku 2014 also received a Touchstone Award. His awards include an Illinois Arts Council Poetry Fellowship, the Japan-America Society of Chicago’s Cultural Achievement Award, and, in his work as a dentist, an American Red Cross Healthcare Heroes Award. He lives in mischievous retirement with his wife Jan and three cats (the horses are now a ten-minute drive away) on the Sangamon River in Piatt County, Illinois.
Comments (4)
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When reading this originally, I really liked the fact that it was written with correct grammar (my son & i) as Lorin above mentioned because the “me and my son” (or any similar iteration) grates on me like nails on a chalkboard.
Although I didn’t write a commentary, I considered that it could have pointed to a dual graduation for the father and son. The father’s graduation might have been delayed over the birth when the son was born when the father was working toward his degree but had to drop out to raise his family. Now years later, the son has gone to university, but now so has the father been able to complete his education, and they are sharing that moment as they knot their ties. That he mentions his son first, grammar aside, the father makes the statement that his son came first back then and yet, he always wanted to finish his degree even if it took many years.
Having read Lee Gurga’s comment about his senryu, I know differently, but…just a different reading of this poem.
“What is noticeable is the way he places the son before the father. What does this mean?” (Melissa)
To me, it simply means that the speaker/ poet ( Lee Gurga) uses normal, polite English. (or as Keith writes, “plain, unaffected language”. I wouldn’t expect Lee to write :
day of graduation—
me and my son side by side (!!! )
. . .
That’s the dialect used in the song “Me & Bobby McGee”, isn’t it?( sung by Janis Joplin, written by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster. ) A good, memorable song but certainly not one suggesting formal occasions or relationships.)
The “me” of “me & my son” probably wouldn’t bother with a tie. A tie is suitable for a formal occasion (which any graduation day is)
I like the simple “mirror effect”. I assume the two are side by side in front of a (literal) mirror, the son mirroring the father’s actions.
A great example of zooming in. Great haiku.
The late twentieth century and the very beginning of this millenium was a great time for good verses in anglophone haiku and senryu. The genre in English was past its infancy and teething problems. There was a newish body of useful analysis and thought on what makes verses work well. Athough this was contributing to restrictive standardisation, there was an upswelling of creativity and exploration. There were not so many publications as today, nor yet the ennui of long-time haikuists so habituated to the repertoire in this tiny form that they seek stimulation in more extreme compositions, as addicts seek higher highs.
This week’s senryu is one of the landmark verses of that fertile period. Aside from the ampersand and the uncapitalised “i,” fashionable in contemporary poetry, it is in plain unaffected language, it draws on a fairly common experience, and it carries quite a charge. As I read it, father and son are in front of a mirror prior to the ceremony. Their shared actions mirror each other; but for each they are different: the son with his fresh achievement, the father probably having graduated long ago, his achievement now in having brought his son up to this stage. The father likely taught his son how to tie a half-Windsor, as my father taught me.
It is a rite of passage such as Confucius would celebrate. The symbolisms and associations of ‘tie’ go way beyond the stripey halter itself that is ours to wear by curious convention. The ties between father and son. The ties of family. The father aware of those other ties that await his son: the obligations of adulthood, of earning a living, wearing a suit, office work —Wordsworthian “shades of the prison house close on the growing boy. ” The parental responsibilities to provide. All lying ahead for the eager son, behind for the weathered father. Mixed pride and trepidation.
Knotty indeed. A classic verse that well deserves its anthologising and repetition.