re:Virals 507

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 Jonathan Epstein was:

     
jazz piano 
the river glitters
with gulls
— Caroline Skanne
  Presence 77, November 2023

Introducing this poem, Jonathan writes:

This fills up my senses. Light dancing off a river surface, the soft sounds of piano jazz (a riverside cafe?), the shrieking of seagulls. I am caught up in the joy of the moment — life in vibrant if not ecstatic motion; the unexpected pleasantness of jazz (civilization) and the cries of seagulls (wildness) as they scavenge human habitats or perhaps catch fish guts in mid-air from returning fisherman.

The alliteration (“glitters with gulls”) casts a poetic spell, while “glitters” does double duty with the sun’s river reflections imitating night stars. Not a pause-and-ponder haiku or one reminding us that life is ephemeral but an invitation to forget self, become one with life (nature) and soar.

Opening comment (Melissa):

I like this haiku for its apparent simplicity, and for the empty space or ‘ma‘ that it offers the reader in seeking their own interpretations. This space or pause is a crucial element of good haiku. For further reading please see footnotes below. When I encounter these words I imagine sitting in a restaurant, possibly in a high rise somewhere, there are large glass windows and I have a great view of a river. Perhaps I am enjoying a glass of wine as I listen to music as it washes over me. It is a haiku that captures a beautiful moment in time. Caroline’s haiku is also multisensory in that you have a suggestion of sound in line 1 and then sight with the river and gulls in lines 2 and 3.

Vidya Premkumar:

There’s something about Caroline Skanne’s jazz piano / the river glitters / with gulls that lingers like the last note of a song you weren’t quite ready to end. The image is spare, almost minimal, yet it opens into something large—movement, sound, light, and a kind of controlled chaos. In the world we’re living in now, where everything feels one breath away from unravelling—news cycles spinning like broken records, the environment shifting too fast, personal grief sitting beside global catastrophe—this poem feels like a quiet anchor.

The mention of jazz piano immediately throws me into the realm of improvisation. Jazz was born from struggle and creativity, from Black American resistance, from places where pain had to transform itself into beauty or risk consuming the soul. So to begin with that phrase—jazz piano—already charges the poem with history. There’s the Great Migration, Harlem Renaissance, civil rights movements, and beyond—all encoded in that music. And yet, Skanne doesn’t dwell on the heavy. She lets the music lift and flow into a river.

The river glitters / with gulls feels almost cinematic, but not in a polished or staged way. It’s not serenity—it’s tension and shimmer, wings flapping, sharp cries, perhaps a city in the background. It reminds me of the need to find fleeting beauty in chaos. Maybe that’s what we’re all trying to do right now—look up from the news scroll or the latest personal loss and see something that glitters, even if it’s gulls and not stars.

From a psychoanalytic perspective, I can’t help but think of the river as the unconscious—constantly moving, sometimes still on the surface, but full of undercurrents. The gulls could be thoughts breaking through—unruly, unpredictable, calling attention to what we try to keep submerged. The music, then, becomes a way to navigate those waters—less therapy and more survival mechanism.

A Marxist reading might notice the absence of labour, of human effort, of production. This isn’t the factory or the gig economy or burnout culture. It’s a moment suspended in time, defying utility. And maybe that’s the quiet protest here: the refusal to be productive, to be useful. Just being. That feels radical today.

As a feminist, I’m drawn to the poem’s refusal to explain, to overperform, to center human drama. It lets the elements speak. Women, historically, have been expected to narrate their pain, to explain themselves. Here, the speaker—if there even is one—watches, listens, maybe plays the piano, and lets it all unfold without taking up too much space. That restraint feels powerful.

A postmodern reading would probably lean into the fragmentation—the jazz, the river, the birds—all sensory fragments that resist a neat story. We live in fragments now. The poem mirrors how disjointed reality feels, and still finds a rhythm in it. There’s no single meaning, and that’s the point.

For me personally, this poem reminds me of evenings where I sit with a cup of something warm, staring at the chaos outside—be it in my inbox or in the sky—and try to make sense of it. Sometimes, like in this poem, I don’t. I just let the notes come, the river run, the gulls circle, and find comfort in the fact that not everything has to be understood to be felt.

Sudha Devi Nayak:

The gulls burst on the consciousness of the poet as they congregate in the river in the golden rays of the sun. The glisten of rippling waters suggests the immediacy of the rich ensemble of a jazz piano with it’s variegated techniques and styles rising to a harmonious whole. A mesmerizing experience that at once thrills and elevates and the heart is filled with an indescribable joy that can only be felt in the purest of moments. One is entirely happy in that moment and feels erased, blotted out with nothing of the self. I recall the line in Willa Cather’s My Antonia-“happiness to be dissolved into something complete and great“. There is magic in the air and the gulls in their grace and glitter reverberate in the memory long after the experience.

Sitarama Seshu Maringanti:

I must admit that I am a little intrigued by this haiku of Caroline Skanne.
Intrigued because the vocal sounds of gulls are not anywhere near the musical sounds of a Piano, either played solo or in ensemble which a jazz piano is. There’s of course the comparison of the keys of a piano with the physical assembly of gulls in all their glorious white and grey plumage.
I am afraid that the comparison ends there. The river waters glitter in the evening rays of the Sun. The gulls land in the water in an orchestrated fashion. The jazz player enthralls his audience in a play on the white and grey keys of his piano. Both are live in a concert session.

Dan Campbell That’s A Rap :

CRITIQUE OF A POEM BY A MERMAID, RAPPER AND PIRATE

Mermaid’s Critique

That’s a lovely image.
It reminds me of the way light dances across the surface just after dawn —
soft, silver, still unsure of itself.
It’s gentle, peaceful. And maybe that’s enough for some.

But I live beneath all that.
Down where the light fades and the stories don’t sparkle — they stir.
You ever watch a school of fish scatter when a shadow passes overhead?
That’s what I’m looking for.
Something with weight.
Something that pulls.
This poem touches the surface — but I want one that sinks.

Rapper’s Critique

Yo, I won’t lie — first line hits.
“The river glitters” — that’s tight. Visual. Got a rhythm to it.
And then “with gulls” — okay, I see it. I get the vibe.
But here’s the thing: I was waitin’ for a twist, a surprise,
something that flips the scene and makes you say damn.

Right now, it’s got mood — but not much motion.
Like a beat with no drop,
or a verse that builds but never punches through.

Still, credit where it’s due —
you said a lot with a little. That takes skill.
Just don’t stop there. Push it. Make it hit harder next time.

Pirate’s Critique

Aye… there’s a shine to these words, no doubt.
“The river glitters,” eh? A fine bit of paintin’ —
I can almost see the water stretchin’ quiet before a storm.

And the gulls… sky-scavengers, always watchin’,
waitin’ for the wreck. Feels real.

But me gut says this poem’s too polished.
It’s missin’ the churn, the danger —
the way the sea can turn sweet to savage in a blink.

Give me a line that smells like salt and smoke.
Make me feel like I’m standin’ on a deck that’s bucklin’ beneath me.
This one? It’s a pretty picture. But I want a story that leaves scars.

Caroline Skanne:

The piano is in my headphones, likely McCoy Tyner, I’m walking along the River Medway past Rochester Bridge. A mellow September sun finding the gold beneath the wings of gulls claiming the sky above the old submarine Black Widow, on my way home after an appointment I’d been putting off for a long time. I feel kind of light and free, pause in the beautiful chaos of gulls and jazz to scribble a poem to capture something of that sense of freedom merging with the music and the river scene.

Thanks to all who sent commentaries. As the contributor of the commentary reckoned best this week, Dan Campbell 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:

     
drying on the clothesline raindrops 
— Srini
  Wales Haiku Journal Winter 24/25

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Footnote:

Caroline Skanne is the founder & editor of hedgerow (www.hedgerowhaiku.com) & a former editor of Blithe Spirit (the journal of the British Haiku Society). Samples of her work etc can be found at www.carolineskanne.com.

https://thehaikufoundation.org/new-to-haiku-negative-space-some-thoughts-on-ma/