In a recent interview with Carmen Sterba for Essences, a column written in part for “Troutswirl,” The Haiku Foundation’s blog, Willmot outlines his journey as a writer of haiku, describing his struggle to find a niche for himself in the art of haiku. He says that he wanted to create work that was his own, free from the romanticized stereotypes that seem to surround Japanese haiku. He emphasizes that he aimed to create something that was based solely on inspiration and personal discovery, something purer and more naturally created than a constructed imitation of the Japanese haiku that has been studied and held on a pedestal for centuries. In the interview, Willmot also explains that his goal as a haiku poet was to create English haiku that was relevant to the culture and time of the current English language, and to throw away any pre-conceived notions of what haiku should or should not be, allowing his readers to simply read his work for what it was. Of inspiration and themes in his own work, Willmot states, “the simplest moments [are] redolent with the complexity of human relations” (Willmot, “Essence #6”). This thought is prevalent throughout his writing, and it is this idea that allowed Willmot to find his niche.
There are many different aesthetic approaches in the genre of haiku as a whole, ranging from Peggy Lyles’ light, nature-based writing to George Swede’s imaginative treatment of the heavier aspects of human nature. However, I have found through my studies of haiku that my favorite works are the ones that manage to combine the simple lightness of a moment with the more complicated and at times darker undertones of what the moment may become when humanity is added into the mix. Without having read the Essences interview beforehand, I found while reading Willmot’s writing that he excelled at this art of lacing complexity within the simple “snapshot” moments of his haiku. His interview confirmed what I had already suspected—that his haiku approach was to write a balanced combination of simplicity and complexity. I have selected several haiku from two of Willmot’s books, The Ribs of Dragonfly, published in 1984 by Black Moss Press, and Sayings for the Invisible, published in 1988 also by Black Moss Press, that I think best display this haiku-writing approach.
The first haiku that I have chosen is from Sayings for the Invisible:
light-string somewhere—
spider-webs ripping
in the cool
Willmot, SftI, 28
The image that came to mind upon reading this piece was the transitional state between Halloween and Christmas. The air is cold. Some people still have their Halloween decorations up, while others are beginning to decorate for Christmas. I think the thing that is intriguing about this haiku is that Willmot manages to capture the essence of change in nine words. The lines are simple, and the image created is ordinary, but the tone of the piece is more complex than that. The haiku addresses the continuity of time, and it drives home the point that things are always changing. While this may not be a comforting thought to some, I think that the haiku can also be seen as a positive thing. The seasons will come and go as they always have, and one change will not last forever. The chill of winter will come again, as will the newness of spring, the warmth of summer and the crispness of fall.
Another haiku that does a good job of showing Willmot’s skill at inlaying his words with meaning is found on page 64 of Sayings for the Invisible:
I open the door
a breeze pours in
from the window
Willmot, SftI, 64
This haiku is a snapshot of a normal instance. A draft occurs when a window is open, and that draft can form an air current when a door is opened. This is what naturally occurs when a door and window are both open at the same time. However, there is a deeper meaning that can be reached underneath the surface reading. Oftentimes, a person will think that he or she has things figured out, but then something happens that changes that person’s initial plans and/or thoughts. When this happens, many people tend to stress out over the fact that things are not working the way that they had planned, instead of working to accept the new circumstances. The “I” in this haiku opened the door to let the breeze in, but the breeze came in through the window instead. Either way, the goal was reached. My interpretation of this haiku is that, while things may not always go as planned, problems have a way of working themselves out in the end.
The final haiku chosen from Sayings for the Invisible is one that immediately intrigued me:
through the flame
the match-head’s
convoluted brain
Willmot, SftI, 25
This haiku was a good example of Willmot’s ability to capture readers’ attention through complex wording. Just as humans are naturally drawn to fire by some instinctual fascination, I think that readers are drawn to things that they do not fully understand at first. Perhaps it is a way of trying to test whether or not we are intelligent enough to figure out the meaning of something for ourselves, or perhaps we are simply curious by nature. When I first read this haiku, I was somewhat confused as to what it was about. Because I had been reading Willmot’s haiku and attempting to find the complexity within it, this piece took me by surprise because it wasn’t complex. It is a haiku about a match burning. I’m sure that I could find some meaning behind the match burning, but I don’t think that is what Willmot intended. I think that he used the last line as a way to capture the attention of the reader by including words that are not typically used to describe an object. I think that his intent was to create a false complexity to emphasize the simplicity of the piece, which is rather ingenious, in my opinion. I enjoyed reading this haiku because the author intentionally took me by surprise.
The next haiku that I would like to discuss is from The Ribs of Dragonfly, a work that combines the storytelling aspect of a novel with haiku. This is a form of haiku writing that, like haiku itself, originated in Japan. The name for such a form is “haibun,” a term that was first coined by Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Basho (Rasmussen). Willmot uses the prose aspect of the book to set up a story of the struggles of a young married couple. The story contains a certain vagueness that adds mystery, but it is descriptive enough to engage the reader. The haiku complement the story, yet remain open for interpretation. They are simple on the surface, but contain a deeper level of significance for those who look hard enough and wish to find this deeper meaning.
will we have children?
wild grapes
follow the snake-fence
Willmot, The Ribs of Dragonfly, 39
This haiku is a great example of Willmot’s ability to weave together something uncomplicated and something intricate to create an impactful moment. This haiku reads as a moment of speculation on the young couple’s future. The snapshot image of the wild grapes on the fence provides an air of tranquility and keeps the “heaviness” of the question in the first line from becoming too overbearing. It provides the haiku with an element of simplicity that blends with the element of something unknown (the couple’s future), creating a moment that is meaningful yet light.
The second haiku that I have chose from The Ribs of Dragonfly is one that still includes a snapshot image, but carries along with it the hint of something slightly darker than the first:
birdseed blown from the feeder
cold hands
break the toast
Willmot, TRoD, 21
Upon first reading this haiku, one is able to imagine a cold, wintery day, the type of day when the wind howls outside and nothing a person does can bring warmth. The small fire in the hearth is no match for the gales of the winter storm, and there is a perpetual frigidness that seems to settle throughout the house. A woman emerges from her bedroom, a blanket cocooned around her frame. She enters the kitchen, and heads towards the toaster. Her hand reaches out towards the loaf of bread in the breadbox, the cold air making the ring on her finger loose. She puts a slice of bread in the toaster, and waits. When the toast pops up, she immediately gravitates towards the warmth. She removes the toast and begins to butter it, but in the short time that it takes to butter the bread and sit down at the table, all of the warmth is gone from the food. Instead of tearing, it breaks in half. My interpretation of this haiku is that the couple in Willmot’s story is going through a rough patch in their marriage. They are growing distant, and the initial warmth that was present in the relationship is fading away. Willmot effectively infuses this regular moment with an emotional depth that leaves the reader feeling as if the cold of the poem can be felt through the words.
As the story of the couple continues, Willmot’s haiku become progressively more somber in tone, if not in image:
on plates, clusters of fishbones
this evening
the kitchen is empty
Willmot, TRoD, 61
On the surface level, this haiku describes a single moment in the events of a day. The snapshot image is one of a table after dinner and an empty kitchen. While Willmot’s words by themselves may not hold a significant emotion, the haiku as a whole contains undertones of something tragic happening within the marriage of the story’s main characters. I feel that the choice to include the image of the fishbones was deliberate on Willmot’s part. Bones comprise the skeleton of something that once was alive; they represent something that has been stripped down, and is left hollow and lifeless. The bones of the fish act as a symbol of what the marriage has become—all that remains of what was once full of life and energy is the hollow reminder of what has been lost. While this image is certainly poignant, I personally find the image of the empty kitchen to be more tragic. I consider the kitchen to be the heart of the home. For my family, the kitchen is the gathering place, the place where we all meet after a long day to unwind and enjoy each other’s company. Dinner is not so much about the meal as it is coming together as a family and spending time together. In fact, many nights, we remain at the table in the kitchen long after the food is gone. The scene that is portrayed in this haiku implies that the inhabitants of the house have come together only to eat dinner, and then have parted ways—the heart of the home is empty, as is the relationship.
At this point in the story, one might be feeling as if the couple is doomed and that things are hopeless (for good reason). However, just when the reader begins to accept that the story will end in tragedy, Willmot offers a flicker of hope.
speravimus in te
snow on the wild roses
more fragile than they
Willmot, TRoD, 80
Upon reading this haiku, I pictured a countryside that is blanketed by snow in the dead of winter. At first, I was convinced that the haiku was a somewhat unsuccessful attempt at trying to convey the beauty of winter. I knew that Willmot was describing the snow as delicate and fragile, but I initially thought that he was trying to evoke a contentment and fascination with the snow that I did not share. I imagined that the haiku takes place in late January or February, the time of the season when it seems as if the snow will never melt. The ice has drained the life out of the plants, and many animals are in hibernation. For many, this is the time of year when seasonal depression hits the worst, and the air has an overall dreary feel to it, but it seemed as if Willmot was trying to convince me as a reader that winter is not all that bad. As a result of what I thought were differences in opinion between the author and I, I almost disregarded this haiku as perhaps not one of his best works. However, then I read the translation of the first line. The first line of the haiku, written in Latin, translates to “trust in you,” and it is a line from a Latin hymn (“Te Deum Laudamus”). This knowledge changed the entire tone of the haiku for me. The mood immediately changed from melancholy to hopeful. My new interpretation of the haiku was that the dark times were drawing to a close. Although winter may seem as if it will last forever at times, the snow will eventually melt, and the roses will once again bloom. We are able to trust in this “you,” be it God or nature or time, and we are able to trust that the light will triumph over the dark. Just as the snow is more fragile than the warmth of spring and the life that comes with that warmth, bad moments in life are more fragile than the good moments. They may seem never-ending and hopeless, but things will eventually get better with time. Challenging times are more fragile than times of peace, because they do not last. There is always peace to be found somewhere, and trusting in that constancy is beneficial. Of course, no sooner had these thoughts come to me than I realized what this meant for the couple in the story. There was hope for them after all. The hardships of the marriage would pass, and better times would come. Maybe they would not be together in the end, but they would be okay. They would heal and move on. Their lives would continue. Ironically, what I initially thought would be my least favorite of Willmot’s work ended up being my favorite, not only for the message it contains, but also because it is open for interpretation and it is simple, yet meaningful.
The next haiku that I chose from The Ribs of Dragonfly served to wrap up the story of the couple, in Willmot’s typical vague-yet-profound style.
drifts exploding—
sunrise
on the snowplow’s blade
Willmot, TRoD, 90
This is a typical winter scene. A snowstorm moves through during the night, and the snowplows are hard at work trying to clear the roads by the morning. In the context of the couple, however, the moment is more monumental than that. The snowplow represents the efforts of both parties to pave new roads in their lives, and to get a fresh start. The exploding drifts are the clearing away of previous mistakes. The sunrise is the dawning of a new stage of life. It is uncertain whether or not the couple will remain together in the end, but the hopeful tone of this haiku makes me think that they might try again.
Willmot ends the story of the young man and woman with one solitary haiku on the last page:
the shed door shuts
a dragonfly skeleton
flies into the dark
Willmot, TRoD, 93
To me, this haiku has the perfect amount of ambiguity. It could be a simple haiku about an empty dragonfly nymph exoskeleton in an old lake shed, but knowing the way that Willmot writes, I do not think that this is the case. I think that the dragonfly skeleton represents the death of the relationship that the couple had at the beginning of the story. That is not to say that they have not formed a different relationship, but I think that their initial marriage is gone for good. The shutting of the shed door symbolizes the end of that initial relationship; they are closing the door on their past mistakes, and they are moving forward, moving on from that.
While Rod Willmot’s Sayings for the Invisible and The Ribs of Dragonfly are different in style, form and content, they both contain a common theme: simple complexity (or complex simplicity, as is the case of the match-head haiku). Whether he is telling a story through a mixture of prose and haiku or simply writing a collection of mostly unrelated haiku, Willmot excels at layering minimalism and intricacy to form meaningful pieces of writing.
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Works Cited
"Te Deum Laudamus (hymn)."Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.
Rasmussen, Ray. "Haibun: A Definition of the Haibun Style of Writing." Ray's Web: Photography & Haiku Poetry. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.
Willmot, Rod. "Essence #6 Featuring Rod Willmot." Interview by Carmen Sterba. Web log post. Troutswirl: The Haiku Foundation Blog. Ed. Scott Metz. The Haiku Foundation, 23 Jan. 2011. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.
Willmot, Rod. Sayings for the Invisible: Haiku and Haiku Sequences (1977-87). Windsor, Ont.: Black Moss, 1988. Print.
Willmot, Rod. The Ribs of Dragonfly. Windsor, Ont.: Black Moss, 1984. Print. |
