re:Virals 508

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. In the host chair today is Keith Evetts. This week’s poem, chosen by Dan Campbell was:

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

Introducing this poem, Dan Campbell writes:

What draws me to the monoku “drying on the clothesline raindrops” is its quiet paradox. At first glance, it feels almost playful — raindrops drying? But the more I sit with it, the more it reveals: a moment suspended between human intention and nature’s indifference. I imagine freshly washed clothes hung with care, only to be caught by surprise rain. And yet, the poem doesn’t dwell on frustration — it shifts focus to the leftover raindrops. It’s not dramatic, just deeply observant. The monoku offers no resolution, only presence. It’s a small, precise moment that lingers long after I’ve read it.

Opening comment (Keith):

Those who focus on classic form and conventions and require an approved kigo from a saijiki before awarding the badge of haiku may find this verse falls short. Likewise those who look for lyricism or other elements of English poetic tradition in contemporary haiku and senryu.  Or those who strive, sometimes too hard, to make haiku a literary art.  However…exemplary, simple and illustrative in several ways, this little verse shows that it is still possible to write natural, observational haiku without striving to be arty, but just artful.

A fleeting visual image, a frequent occurrence in our own back yard, arrested and brought to attention by the haiku poet, and communicated in five simple words. The inversion from “raindrops drying on the clothesline” to “drying on the clothesline raindrops” introduces a cut by grammatical means where expectation is subverted. There is warm haikai humour in that it isn’t clothing drying on the line, but drops of water, natural rain, itself.  It can be read ironically, as human aims are confounded by the weather. Life’s like that.  It can be read as something ordinary but beautiful, as hanging raindrops are. It is detached from the poet’s ego: consider how the meaning would be changed, and universality reduced, banality increased, by “my clothesline”.  There is something of the koan about it, and I found myself returning to Srini’s verse with pleasurable reflection during this week, ephemeral as raindrops may be, and as most haiku are.

Pamela Garry:

Little raindrops balance on the clothesline and gently cling to the underside. Surface tension holds the water in each translucent sphere. When the heat transfers and creates a breach, the bits of water disappear in thin air! The clothesline bows, creating breeze.

Sudha Devi Nayak:

Once the written word flies off the page and pen of the poet it no longer belongs to him. It belongs to the interpretation of the reader according to his own sensibilities and imagination. Haiku is never saying everything, it is the controlled beauty of what is left unsaid and it is here the encounter takes place between the writer and his reader.

In this haiku as I see it there has been a quick shower and the clothes have been hurriedly pulled off the clothes line leaving the raindrops to settle on the clothesline in a row glowing like iridescent bubbles in the sparkle of the sun. While the clothes have escaped the rain we are treated to the sheer beauty of the raindrops sitting on the clothesline waiting, waiting to slip off or dry up eventually .

Life has its purposes but sometimes they get mixed up or lose their focus, maybe through no fault of our own. The chance moment with no purpose can be cherished and possessed forever in memory. It is an attempt at grasping the ephemeral because nothing lasts. I don’t even know from the haiku whether the washing is still on the clothes line with the quivering raindrops on them. Every reader derives his meaning from the “tip of the iceberg”

Harrison Lightwater—through the optic of haiku, it’s poetry:

I use a pen name partly because my mates would never let me forget it if they found out about lines like this of Srini’s. I mean, raindrops drying on the clothesline, how to explain to worldly companions after a few beers that this can be poetry, without them thinking you must be crazy?

But through the optic of haiku, it is poetry. Two noun images, a verb, an implied cut, as brief as it could be, a moment, in plain language, and a universal experience. It meets the spec. It creates a vivid image. It has a Zen ring to it. It has the human element set in nature, and the smile of the unexpected. The words leave space for the imagination: what’s not there, and the circumstances. If you weren’t really into haiku, you probably wouldn’t “get it.” I like it. Something to think about on the oil rig or the train to the office. Thank you, Srini.

Author Srini:

This haiku attempts to capture not so much one moment in time as many similar moments.

Where I am from, Chennai in southern India, one often looks forward to the sky darkening during the hottest months of the year—May, June and July. No sooner do clouds gather than clothes are removed from the clotheslines strung outside most houses. Often the sky does not reward this effort, and there is hardly even a drizzle, as the clouds scud away elsewhere. When the clouds do bring rain, people – especially my father who loves rain despite the inconveniences it occasions – birds and animals experience some much-needed respite from the oppressive heat and humidity of dog days.

Spells of summer rain are usually short, however, in my part of the world, lasting between a few minutes to an hour. When the sun’s returning light –and it returns with a vengeance– falls on the raindrops dotting a clothesline, it is a wonderful sight to behold. Seeing sunlit raindrops on a clothesline in turn makes me wonder if they are there (like clothes) just to dry in the sun.

Regarding the form and content of the haiku, I have very little that is interesting to say. The words came to me in their present order. So did the horizontal one-line form which, with the benefit of hindsight, may be taken to represent a clothesline.

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

     
cheerful mechanic
sketches the broken fuel pump
on my map
—Marianne Bluger
 Early Evening Pieces, Buschek Books Ottawa 2003

re:Virals is co-hosted by Melissa Dennison and Keith Evetts (managing editor).

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.

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Footnote:

Biographical note: Srini teaches English at the Rishi Valley School in Andhra Pradesh, India. He divides his free time between taking long walks, watching cricket and dabbling in poetry. He has been writing haiku for the past six years.

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This week’s verse is another in the hybrid area between haiku and senryu, with elements of both.

We look forward to verses about tumble driers.