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An Essay on George Swede and His Haiku
Life and Writing
George Swede was born in Riga, Latvia on November 20, 1940. In 1947 he moved to Canada and has lived there ever since. He worked his way through school and received his BA in Honors Psychology from University of British Columbia in 1964. He interned for a few months at the British Columbian Penitentiary. He then went on to Dalhousic University where he received his masters’ degree in 1965. After working as a school psychologist for a year he realized that he wanted to teach. He joined the Psychology Department at Ryerson University and has worked there for the past twenty years. He received his PhD in creative writing from Australia’s Greenwich University in 1996. (Biographical details are from Swede's website).
George Swede began writing poetry in 1968 after studying creative writing at Toronto’s three Schools of Art. His first collection of poetry was written in 1974. He wasn’t introduced to haiku writing until two years after that when he was asked to review The Modern Japanese Haiku. He researched haiku and soon began writing haiku himself. (WHC Haiku Forum)
Though he mostly focuses on haiku, Swede has also written other types of work as well. He has published 1,723 poems in over 7,000 places (Swede website). He is the editor of twenty-two poetry books; eight-teen of them are haiku books. He has written and published seven children fiction books, two psychology books, sixty-nine articles on poetry and more. (Swede website).
George Swede has spoken in hundreds of classes, libraries, and schools, around the world, including Great Britain, Japan, the United States, and Canada. (Brooks, Millikin website) He also has won over seventy awards and grants, the most recent for The Snapshot Press Tanka Collection Competition 2005. His winning tanka will be published this summer in the book First Light, First Shadows. (Snapshot Press)
Our clothes
where they fell
on the floor
gather first light
first shadows
Twenty-five years
and still together
despite everything—
I let the purple thistle
stay in the garden
George Swede’s haiku focus mostly on human nature and human aspect. Due to this fact his haiku are easy to picture and relate to. I think Amanda Hill said it best in her essay on George Swede’s haiku when she stated, “many of Swede’s haiku have a theme and an image so vivid that it takes you there.” In her interview with him she asked “if his universal dialect and experiences were purposely placed into his haiku in order to make more people connect with it, or did he write only from his experiences, for the sake of recording his memories for himself." To this he explained, “that most life events are by nature not culture-bound. He said that he rarely worries about whether a poem or particular haiku is going to be relevant or not. By its nature, the haiku had to involve real events and circumstances.”
The same ability to portray a life-like image through Swede’s haiku can also be experienced in his senryu as well. A senryu is a haiku-like poem involving human nature only (Swede and Brooks). Often in senryu there is some, almost satirical humor involved. While they may not always hold as deep of a meaning as haiku, Swede’s senryu are definitely enjoyable to read.
Email Interview
I was able to interview George Swede via email. Prior to my interview with Swede I read through some of his previous interviews. I then chose to refrain from asking common questions that were asked in those interviews.
I first asked George Swede why he had chosen to write haiku. He explained that when he was researching haiku for his review of Makoto Ueda's Modern Japanese Haiku: An Anthology, he began writing as haiku as well. Moreover, he “felt a natural affinity for the haiku form.” When looking back on his earlier non-haiku poetry he said that it was “imagistic and brief”. This he believes “suggests that he was destined to write haiku.”
I then asked him what he thought reader should get out of reading haiku. Swede said that “good haiku make us realize the importance of the moment and that life is a succession of such moments.”
“We need to stop our activities once in a while and give ourselves a chance to reflect on the significance of various moments, the profound connections that they often contain. When we do so, life acquires greater meaning.” —George Swede
After learning that George Swede wrote non-haiku poetry and other forms of writing including fiction and non-fiction I decided to ask him if he had a favorite type of writing. He said that he mainly writes haiku, senryu and tanka as well as articles on haiku. He explained, “Getting older makes one focus one’s energies on what one believes to be most important.”
While reading Swede’s haiku I noticed that he mostly wrote three liners, but also had one and two liners as well. I was wondering if he had attempted any other techniques and forms in his haiku. He said that he had tried everything: one-liners, four-liners, visual haiku, language-centered haiku, haiga, and has worked with collaborators involving these techniques.
My final question for George Swede was specifically about his senryu. A previous interview with Swede by Amanda Hill discussed where George Swede drew his inspiration for his haiku and whether he chose a universal dialect and experiences to enable more people to connect with them. To the first part of the question Swede stated that he wrote his haiku from his own experiences. For the second part he explained that “most life events are by nature not culture bound and that he rarely worries about whether a poem or particular haiku is going to be relevant or not.” (Amanda Hill’s interview)
With this in mind I began to wonder if he did the same for his senryu. In many senryu there is a hint of satire. I asked George Swede if he wrote senryu by finding irony and satire in everyday human activity or if he had to add in the satire. Swede explained “he finds satire in everyday life, and is there regularly for anyone to use”; however, this didn’t mean that he doesn’t alter the situations. He explained “haiku and senryu, like all other forms of poetry and forms of art require some invention.”
He then talked further on the two general schools of haiku-writing. Haiku-as-poetry school is the view he expressed. The other view was what he called the reportorial school of haiku. This school only writes about actual events and records them exactly as they occurred. In his opinion this “occasionally results in good work, but usually produces the bland and prosaic.” Through my interview with George Swede I felt that I got a sense not only of his humor, but of his insight as well. I took his responses not only as answers to my questions, but also as advice to life and poetry in general.
Haiku Response
The following are some of my favorite haiku by George Swede from the book Almost Unseen. I also included my reading responses and personal insights to these haiku. Therefore, my images and views of the haiku may be different than others’ view, but after all that is what makes haiku an art inside itself.
Paris pond
a frog Picassos
my face
Almost Unseen, Pg 49
After the introduction of George Swede’s and Randy Brooks’ Global Haiku, Swede discuses what are important to a good haiku. He stated that among the most important criteria of a good haiku was it included some reference to nature other than human. When I first learned about haiku in grade school I was under the impression that this meant that haiku were only about nature. However, upon reading Swede’s haiku I realized that they didn’t have to all have to be about abstract scenes in nature. Many if not most of George Swede’s haiku are about people and common events that are easy for everyone to relate to. This is not to say that none of his haiku feature nature. However, his approach to including nature in haiku is a bit different than the traditional theme. I liked this haiku because of the playful interaction between man and nature. It seems more like man with nature rather than man verses nature. I also like the unique personification of the frog Picasso-ing the face. I don’t think I would have ever thought to explain that image in such a way. It is perfectly clear and has all the detail it needs, yet is only said in a few short words.
as the professor speaks
only his bald spot
is illuminated
Almost Unseen, Pg 31
Many of my favorite pieces by George Swede are his senryu. He does an excellent job of revealing the satirical humor in everyday life. The senryu above is one of my favorites. It is easy to relate to the situation in this haiku. Anyone who has ever been bored during a class can relate to this situation. Moreover, if anyone has ever tried to teach others something that they were passionate about and there was no enthusiasm from the learner, they too can relate to the professor’s frustration. I also like how the focus of the senryu is not on the students or the actual lecture, but rather on the professor’s bald spot. You can easily imagine yourself in the classroom, staring at glare on the professor’s head. You and the other students are looking right at the professor as if listening but you don’t hear a word of the lecture. Moreover, I think this senryu is a good example of George Swede’s sense of humor.
city park
the stone hero’s dark side
hides a drug deal
Almost Unseen, Pg 24
I never was quite sure if this poem would be considered a haiku or a senryu, but I liked it because of its subject matter. Again the image is easy to picture. There is a large stone statue of a president or general in the center of a city park. In the shadow of this statue a dealer quickly makes a deal right out in the open. What adds even more to this senryu/haiku is the irony involved. A memorial to an honored hero is hiding an illegal act. The context makes the hero’s statue sound like an accomplice to the crime. I also liked this haiku because it juxtaposes the good and the bad of mankind. It also is a good example of how poetry isn’t always flowery, loving, and caring. It involves not only a real world situation, but also one that makes you feel uncomfortable because it is a real world situation.
ice-edged pond
the divorcee’s ring
of white skin
Almost Unseen, Pg 76
One thing I noticed in a few of George Swede’s haiku was that he had a talent for writing about the simple little details that hint at the big picture. I liked that fact because it presents the reader with an idea and then allows them to take the next step and add their own detail. This also allows the reader to not only enjoy the haiku but take part in its existence as well. This haiku is one of my favorite examples of a simple image being so much more than just a tiny extra detail. The ring of white skin around the divorce’s finger implies that the divorce may have recently happened. It is still something that the divorcee is healing from, but there still remains this little reminder that the marriage was real. I also think that the divorcee would be one of the few people who even noticed the white ring. I can see him or her start to play with their ring without even thinking about it until they realize that the ring is no longer there and the memories flood back. It is sometimes the little things that you forget are there until it is painfully obvious that they are gone but the significance still remains.
mental hospital my shadow stays outside
I included this haiku not only because it was one of my favorites but also because it broke the usual three-line setup associated with haiku writing. In this haiku as in the one about the wedding ring I liked how Swede made his subject matter something that is usually overlooked, our shadow. Unless your Peter Pan or making shadow figures many people aren’t too observant of where there shadow is or what it may be doing. The shadow here is avoiding the mental hospital for one reason or another. What is wonderful about this haiku and many others is that it can be taken from many points of view. For instance if you look at it from a visitor’s point of view the shadow is nervous or afraid to come in. From a patient’s point of view the shadow could be the only part of them that is free to be outside the mental hospital whenever it wants. Another point of view could suggest that there are bright fluorescent lights in every room and hallway of the mental hospital so there are no shadows.
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Works cited “Biography: George Swede, Guest Editor.” WHC Haiku Forum
http://www.worldhaikureview.org/1-3/whchaikuforum_gsbio.shtml
Swede, George. Almost Unseen, Selected Haiku of George Swede. Decatur,IL:
Brooks Books, 2000
Hill, Allison. Personal interview. Spring 2001
http://www.brooksbookshaiku.com/MillikinHaiku/haiku/writerprofiles/George Swede.html
“The Snapshot Press Tanka Collection Competition 2005.” Snapshot Press.
http://www.snapshotpress.co.uk/tanka_competition_results.htm
Swede, George and Brooks, Randy Global Haiku. Oakville, On: Mosaic Press, 2000
Swede, George. “George Swede.”
http://home.primus.ca/%7Eswede/ |
