A Life Made Compact: The Haiku of George Swede
by Alexa Duncan
With the uncanny ability to make readers laugh as well as cry in the space of three short lines (or less), George Swede is a Canadian haiku poet who wears his heart bleeding on his sleeve. That is, before he rips your heart out and throws it on the ground. Swede's haiku is rife with clever observations about the human experience, every word chosen with meticulous care, even if it may not seem like it. Wry and witty, Swede does not cringe away from tough topics as lesser poets might. Abortion, divorce, death. All of these things and more can be found in Swede's work. Not only does he write effective haiku, he writes effective stories within them. These haiku powerful on their own, but paired together, Swede's knack for narrative comes alive. This narrative knack will be examined at length throughout this paper, starting first with a matched pair of haiku from Swede's book Almost Unseen.
The first matched pair to be examined deals with the ever complicated question of what it means to exist in the world, and how we, as people, are supposed to navigate our way through life. They are as follows:
during discussion
on the meaning of life the crunch
of a student's apple
George Swede, AU, 30
as the professor speaks
only his bald spot
is illuminated
George Swede, AU, 31
The first haiku sets up the scene in this pair. Picture, for a moment, a college classroom full of uninterested students. It's a morning class. 8 AM. Everyone is tired. No one is paying attention to the philosophy professor's lecture. Many students have brought their breakfast, since it's much too early to eat a proper one, and one particular student has brought in an apple. A funny choice, given the old teacher-apple stereotype. Just one of the many ways Swede's humor shines through. The student in question is crunching away at that apple, the noise one of the only sounds in the room. The discussion on the meaning of life hangs in the balance, precarious. It gets no answer but the crunch.
The second half of this pair, the haiku on the right, moves from the class's perspective and segues to the professor's. He's an old man. Ailing and perhaps a bit frail, he's been tenured for many years and teaches this philosophy class out of obligation. However, after a brush with pneumonia during the previous semester, the professor has been frequently wondering to himself: What is the meaning of life? That is the aim of his field, is it not? Philosophers have struggled with this very question for millennia. Unable to come up with a suitable answer himself, the professor decides the night before his current class that he will ask his students what they deem the meaning of life to be. He ambles in the room, cane in hand, and dims the lights. The 8 AM schedule doesn't bother him. He gets up at five every morning to have his coffee and read the newspaper. As his students filter in, he readies himself for the discussion he hopes will follow. The students this year are a quiet bunch. They don't like reaching outside of themselves very much. Hard to teach a class on philosophy that way, but he's tried regardless. He strives for illumination. That spark of vigor that comes with realizing you've just made sense of some tiny portion of the world.
Finally, once every student takes their seat, the professor deigns to start class. The question gets asked. What is the meaning of life? Silence. An entire semester's worth of work jammed into a single sentence. The professor waits for an answer. The students stare back at him, eyes blank as their memories. Then the crunching starts. Crunch, crunch, crunch. During the discussion on the meaning of life…There is a long silence and a long pause. The only light left on in the room is the light on the professor's desk. It reflects sharply against the bald spot in the middle of his skull. As he asks the question again, he can see it. In all his students' glazed eyes. The glare of the light. That's all.
In a mere six lines, Swede's haiku has manages to tell an entire story. His work conveys setting, story, and even character in as few words as possible. The class, the professor. The discussion, the illumination. It's a full narrative made possible by Swede's strong images and use of people as subjects, a theme that will continue on with the second matched pair. A common point of interest for George Swede are relationships. Not just relationships in general, but how we as people navigate through our relationships. Take this matched pair, for example:
unhappy wife
I pedal my bike
through puddles
George Swede, AU, 46
marital dispute
I patch cracks
in the cement
George Swede, AU, 56
This pair of haiku differs from the first in that it takes away a third-person point of view and moves the reader into directly into the haiku. "Unhappy wife / I pedal my bike." "Marital dispute / I patch cracks." The use of personal pronouns in these haiku makes the experience of reading them that much more visceral. It also makes the narrative they tell compelling in a way that the first pair wasn't. "I" helps readers connect, especially in the short form of haiku. It helps that these haiku describe situations a great many people find themselves in. Both describe unhappiness in marriage and both make moves back toward nature by the end. This is another common theme in Swede's work. Many of his haiku start with people and end with these same people returning to more natural states—that is, directly in nature itself. It's arguably a more peaceful place, one where the people in Swede's haiku can go to in order to escape the chaos of their lives.
In the first half of the pair, we have an equally unhappy husband (or wife) riding his bike through puddles of rain. The unhappy wife at the start of the haiku is the reason for the husband's departure. They've gotten into a particularly heated argument. So heated, in fact, that the husband decides to go for a ride on his bike. It's an old bike, wearing rust on the spokes of his wheels. He hasn't ridden it in a long while. It used to be a hobby he'd take up with his wife. Before they had kids, before everything in their lives got too chaotic to break from. Now, the husband decides to finally take that old bike for a spin. He's older than he was ten years ago, and he struggles to breach the tops of hills. As he rides and sees children playing on primly trimmed suburban lawns. The same houses over and over again, built in the same styles, painted the same colors. The overwhelming sameness of it all makes him wonder, briefly, what he's doing with his life. As he rides through pedals from the rain that blew through the night before, he catches his reflection in the water. He's older now, and wiser. He's here in his suburb because it's safe. It's the same. Over and over and over. That kind of stability is what his kids need. It's what his wife needs. His life is not so singular anymore. It hasn't been since he got married. He remembers that as he starts to pedal bac home. His wife is waiting for him, and the sun is peeking out through the gray clouds. Everything will be all right.
The second half of the pair brings with it even more contention. Swede likes to turn and face the complicated side of humanity, though there is always a light at the end of every tunnel. Even if it can be hard to see. Again in the second haiku, we have the same husband and wife from the first one. They've had yet another argument, and the wife has banished the husband to the yard. That way, he can get the work he's been neglecting done. The driveway's been through too many years, too many cars without repair. When are you going to get the driveway done? His wife asks him. It's a frequent conversation of theirs. Soon, he replies. Soon never comes. Until today, when he's got nothing left to occupy his time with. Retrieving the needed materials from his garage, the husband carries on. He doesn't notice his wife watching him from the kitchen window, a forlorn look on her face. She isn't thrilled by all the fighting they've been doing lately. Everything has just seemed so static, so cyclical. They wake up, they take care of the kids, they go to work, they come home, they eat dinner, they go to sleep. That's all they do. Even the friendship that that built up to their marriage even seems to be gone. It's a terrible feeling. To be married and to feel so distant from one another. She hates it.
Her husband, meanwhile, is hard at work on the cracks in the concrete. Big fissures split the driveway under his boots. Smaller cracks spider out from the crevices like tributaries to a river. With every crack he mends, the husband feels a certain relief. Every crack can be fixed if worked at. Every marital dispute can be resolved if both parties are willing to listen. In Swede's haiku, the last two lines are the light at the end of the tunnel. While many haiku writers may preach caution when it comes to writing in metaphor, Swede does it so well that readers probably wouldn't even notice if the metaphor isn't pointed out to them. In this instance, mending the cracks in the concrete is a metaphor for mending the cracks in the marriage. Taken literally, the narrative shows the husband fixing the driveway. By the end, his wife decides to come forth from her kitchen retreat. She wants to make things work just as badly as her husband does. And so the two of them, shy in their reconciliation, patch the cracks together. It's not much, but it's a start, and this marriage will carry on despite its rocky beginnings. This is a perfect example of how Swede's haiku can move from dark to light. Kinetic change is the mark of a good haiku, indeed the mark of great haiku. Swede's haiku certainly classifies, from the move from to light, to the move of human subjects back to nature. Even something as inevitable as death, Swede manages to make beautiful, as seen in our third pair from Almost Unseen.
George Swede isn't afraid to look death square in the face and laugh. He also isn't afraid to bring a bit of beauty to mortality, observing death with both sensitivity and thoughtfulness. The third pair to be discussed does just that:
grandfather's deathbed
more and more snowflakes
cling to the window
George Swede, AU, 112
as the coffin lowers
several watches
sound the hour
George Swede, AU, 113
Our story begins this time around with a nursing home in winter. It's been snowing for the past three days. The forecast has calls for at least two more inches by the morning. in the home, a man is dying. He's lived ninety-four years. A good, long life. He joked a few days before that he'd be happy enough to die in a blizzard. It looks like he's getting his wish. His family can't bring themselves to laugh at the joke. Instead, they busy themselves with making the old man as comfortable as possible. The cancer has ravaged his already frail body and existing is no longer as easy as it once was. Family members bring in flowers, condolence cards. The rest of the nursing home is quiet, seemingly muffled by the falling snow. Grandfather can't speak very well, and he sleeps most of the day. The nurses say it will be time son. Goodbyes should be exchanged before it's too late.
And so the family lines up, one by one, to say goodbye. Daughters, sons, nieces, nephews, grandchildren. Some try to cover their grief with soothing smiles while others are openly distraught. As difficult as it is to let go, they know they must do it. Their only consolation is the fact that this life they're mourning has been so long, so storied. The snow also helps. Grandfather loved snow. Despite his age, he'd bloom with every winter. Help the children with their snowmen. Special delight came on the wings of the holiday season. Grandfather loved these times the most. Nothing but warmth and family. Surely, thinks one of his grandchildren, he'd love this even now if he knew. Everyone is together. All for him. As the day goes on, Grandfather's condition gets worse. Snowflakes build and build on his windowsill, sticking to the glass. It's as if they're saying goodbye as well. Goodbye to the man who loved them so much. Hours pass. Coffee is poured, more tears are shed. The snow builds, the wind howling down the streets. All goodbyes have been made and Grandfather has decided it's time to go. No more pain where he is going, no more suffering. His family knows this. Their grief, just like the nursing home, is muffled by the storm.
A few days later, the family gathers at a grave in a snow-covered cemetery. The second haiku takes over our story now. After the initial service, Grandfather's coffin hovers over a fresh grave. Snow mounds at its side, wispy drifts in the frigid afternoon. Everyone shivers in their black clothes, but no one complains. Not even the children. The priest's breath puffs as he speaks. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Flurries speckle the smooth surface of the casket. It sinks lower and lower into the ground. At the same time, someone's watch beeps. The hour of death is upon them. The hour of peace for Grandfather. As in the pair above, man returns to nature while the loved ones he leaves behind struggle to pick up the pieces.
In order to fully illustrate the difference between a narrative poet like George Swede from other haiku poets, it is helpful to look at the work of a secondary author. For this last matched pair, the haiku of George Swede will be compared to a haiku by American poet Peggy Lyles. The two have starkly different voices and starkly approaches to writing haiku. The pairing is as follows:
half into the open grave the aging mourner's shadow
George Swede, AU, 93
family graveyard
a boy finds his middle name
on the oldest stone
Peggy Lyles, THTR, 30
In this matched pair, both Swede and Lyles write of graveyards and moments of grief as well as discovery. This is where the similarities start to wane. Swede's haiku, though shorter that Lyles's in terms of pure length, situates the reader into a position of mourning. The darkness captured in so few words is indicative of Swede's outlook on death and the human condition. The mourner is aging, so they could very well be the next one to be buried. Their shadow is already halfway into the open grave. This haiku conveys an overall sadness, heavy with the inevitability of death. It focuses on the mourner, however, not the oncoming death. Take this in contrast with the quiet wonder of Peggy Lyles's graveyard haiku. Instead of an aging mourner, we have a boy learning his lineage at the cemetery most likely with his family. Many people have had had the experience of going to a cemetery and finding their last name on a headstone. It's hard not to wonder if you are not somehow related to the deceased. Nevertheless, Lyles's haiku writes about a moment in time. A curious, wondrous moment situated around a young person, still vibrant with life. On the other hand, Swede's haiku is much darker. His cemetery visits are not curious ones filled with happy accidents. They are raw moments, haunted with grim implications, where Lyles's haiku brims with history, lineage, and curiosity. This pairing cuts to the heart of why Swede's haiku is different from any other's.
George Swede has cultivated a reputation for himself in the haiku community as being "the funniest haiku poet who ever lived," according to Haiku Anthology editor Cor van den Heuvel. Indeed, Swede's humor shines darkly in his work. His haiku are bold and unflinching, people-oriented and complicated. They span out from mere moments into entire narrative stories, taking readers on journeys one to three lines long. This wry knack for storytelling packed into such a small form speaks to Swede's talent and ability to compact the complications of human lives into a single haiku. the English haiku tradition is lucky to count Swede amongst its ranks, and it cannot be doubted that his work will continue to be read for years to come.
Works Cited
Lyles, Peggy Willis., and Randy Brooks. To Hear the Rain: Selected Haiku of Peggy Lyles. Decatur, IL: Brooks, 2002. Print.
Swede, George, and Randy Brooks. Almost Unseen: Selected Haiku of George Swede. Decatur, Ill: Brooks, 2000. Print.
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