Contemporary Author Study on Nick Avis

Haiku is a means of seeing life through words of another. Through haiku we are not only able to see the images that an author is metaphorically painting for us but additionally, the vagueness of the complete picture allows us to relate the material to our own lives in a way traditional poetry doesn’t allow for.

Although currently residing in Newfoundland, Nick Avis was born in England. He attended Memorial University in Newfoundland, graduating in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science in Physics and the Queen’s University Ontario graduating in 1980 with a Bachelor of Law. He currently practices law while still writing haiku and giving seminars and attending conferences across Canada and the United States.

While Nick Avis’ haiku in his book bending with the wind range in material from nature to love to loss, they all contain breathtaking visual images as well as extensive emotion. His book is divided into twelve different segments with each one relating to a different subject matter. In each section the haiku’s vary in length, in presentation, and is style but all focus on or relate to one particular thought, feeling, or object, directly or loosely.

I was originally drawn to Nick Avis because of his haiku;

november nightfall
the shadow of the headstone
longer than the grave

I found it on a haiku website called "Contemporary Haiku: Origins and New Directions" and was immediately connected with it. I liked that this haiku used so much descriptive illustration. Through the first line, november nightfall, the reader is able to feel the cold November evening scene that Avis is setting for them. As the reader, we visual the barren tree limbs and the brown grass. I see it as twilight so while the sun is setting, it births shadows on all of the mysterious objects in the cemetery. He continues by placing us in a graveyard and paints us a picture one of those long shadows being of a headstone, so lengthy that it surpasses the grave altogether. I picture myself standing at the end of the grave, morning a lost loved one, engulfed in the shadow as well. I think this haiku is just one of many examples of the talent of Nick Avis and his ability to both paint an exceptional image in a readers mind but also inflict emotion through his writing.

The first segment of his book is entitled descending the mountain. In this section he starts with

After making love
We descend the mountain
And its silence

This haiku is the basis for all of the others that he writes for this section as they all relate to either nature (the mountain) or a woman. My favorite one in this segment is

downtown graveyard
the taxi driver’s meter
clicks

This haiku takes me to a graveyard, maybe the same one with the encompassing shadow, maybe not. In this graveyard, however, I’m not morning at the grave but instead I am in the taxi, scared or unwilling to face the dead. I can feel the dread and regret that from the seat of the cab and the frustration that grows with each click of the meter, each passing minute. The scene that Avis sets is gray; the gray buildings of downtown, the gray concrete street, the gray stone headstones, and the gray, dismal sky. All of this gray contrast with the taxi which itself contrast with the somber mood of the taxi’s occupant.

Section two; waking from a dream has an underlying theme of nature and season, particularly last autumn and winter. The previous mentioned haiku november nightfall comes from this section and it includes both aspects that the section spotlights. Another outstanding example in this section is

coming to the end
of my grandmother’s diary
cold november wind

This haiku immediately reminded me a book that I read called Hold Still by Nina LaCour. The book is the story a girl dealing with the suicide of her best friend who left a diary. Through the diary the girl is able understand more about her friend and her mistakes and her illness. I see this haiku relatable to the book because like Caitlin in the book, I imagine that the reader of the grandmother’s diary prolonged reading the end of the diary because once the last page was read, the person (in the haiku’s case, the grandmother) would have no more new words, new thoughts, or new emotions. Through the haiku I can feel the dread of the reader of the diary and the sorrow of losing the grandmother all over again. I can imagine the determination that must come with being able to see such as task through. I think the cold novemeber wind can be seen as both the actual wind and as the coldness, emptiness that must be felt once the last page is done.

Section three, springmistory as one can imagine from the title, focuses on spring and the nature of that season. There are many references to blooming flowers and to animals that provoke thoughts of spring.

blooming on both sides
of the rusting railway line
new dandelions

This haiku is loaded with contrasting images which incite deeper reflection than thought at first sight. The images are simple, the rusted brownish railroad line in the middle of nowhere. It too is blooming, blossoming from the winter desolation that consumed it and now is surrounded with greenery and flower flourish. While we see the dandelions as yellow weeds, the track sees them as beautiful. I think that it speaks to the old saying that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ In addition to the picture already visualized, the spring breeze can almost be felt as well as the smells of the numerous blooming plants.

The next section, on thin ice relates to water in some way or/and to different season.

the village graveyard
one by one the headstones lost
in the ocean mist

Nick continues to relate his topics to death, to the graveyard that he mentioned before. This time he moves it from the gray downtown to a small village by the sea. I picture this graveyard to be smaller than the one before. The headstones are older, some so old that they set precariously to one side or the other. The grass is worn with path marks from visitors over the years so that the dirt shows through as mud from the misty air that settles upon the cemetery. The mist is so think that it practically consumes the entire yard slowly making it appear that the headstones are disappearing. Through this haiku Avis makes me feel longing, not only for the people that have passed but also for the graveyard itself.

Another section; flight focuses on birds, wings, flying and such. Like in many other of the sections, Avis uses many different techniques to express his visions. One he writes forming wings flying while other he abandons his usual three line verse and opts for one line haiku.

your cry carries me across the water

This makes me picture the ocean, blue with white crusting waves with no end to the water in sight. I hear the crashing of the water and the seagulls that circle overhead. I can even almost smell the salt that lingers in the air. I feel the heartache of the man who hears the cry, the cry of the lover that he left. As he travels further and further away, the sound of her cry only gets louder in his head. In his memory is burnt the image of her weeping as he left and the ocean itself it a reminder to him of the salty tears that she wept for him.

the flower she gave me is composed of longing love/breakup haiku. I think he made a nice transition from flight into this section because, as shown above, the concepts relate well to one another.

this time
she leaves nothing behind
the winter moon

It seems that this wasn’t the first time that she left but this time she took everything with her; she’s not coming back. I can picture the empty living room, echoing with each of his steps as he enters the door and realizes that everything is gone. I can image his heartache as it him that this time it is really over. I can see him walking through the rooms only to discover that they, too, are empty. All the while, a full, bright white winters moon shines through his window, reflecting on the shiny hardwood floor, like it would on water.

Nick Avis’ work is both diverse and inspiring. He transcends traditional haiku basics by often leaving the three verse rhetoric and using one and two line and even creating illustrations with the letters of his words. He provides the reader with subject matter that most can relate with so that there is an automatic connection to his writing. His haiku rotate between light and sometimes humorous to deep and emotional. Nature is and is an undercurrent in a majority of his work and he often uses it hand in hand with other topics to prove it more than one dimensional.

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Works Cited

Appointments to Legal Aid Commission. (2005, November 14). Retrieved from Newfoundland Labrador website: http://www.releases.gov.nl.ca////n09.htm

Avis, N. (1993). Newfoundland Poetry Series: bending with the wind. St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada: Breakwater .

Missias, A. C. (n.d.). Contemporary Haiku: Origins and New Directions. Retrieved from http://webdelsol.com//.htm