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Vivid Images in Common Occurrences
Most people think haiku describe nature, and by describing nature, the haiku paints a vivid image in the mind of the reader. In the haiku of Carol Montgomery, a published haiku author, she doesn’t concentrate on themes derived from nature. Instead, Montgomery chooses events that happen in everyday life, usually involving people. The events she chooses, however, are on the darker side of everyday life. For instance, she has written haiku about death, clinging to the past, arguments, and divorce. Although she does not confine herself to the traditional guidelines of haiku involving nature, Montgomery does succeed in writing haiku with vivid images.
autumn storm
my dead aunt’s
alarm ringing
Montgomery, Haiku Moment, 138
In the anthology, Haiku Moment published by Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., Carol Montgomery tackles the topic of death, a subject one may not initially relate to haiku (Ross 138). As most people believe that haiku are mostly about nature and the Zen-like experience, the affects and intentions of the haiku may be overlooked along with the picture Montgomery paints. The season and tone is immediately set by the phrase autumn storm. From this, the reader envisions a colder, rainy day in autumn, such as October. With the interpretation of when in autumn, the reader may also picture leaves littering the ground. Wet and decomposing, they cluster together.
Montgomery initially develops the atmosphere during the phrase autumn storm, the cold and dreariness of the weather project onto each person’s mood that experiences it. As this is followed by someone mentioning their deceased aunt, the reader can imagine a woman [or man] looking out the window at the rain. Although she’s not outside in the cool rain, the house is just as cold. Without her aunt, the house doesn’t have the warmth it once did.
Lost in her own thoughts as she rocks slowly back and forth in her aunt’s favorite rocking chair, her aunt’s alarm goes off. This leads one to imagine that the aunt recently passed away, possibly the afternoon before. As her aunt’s alarm would already have been set, it goes off this morning where her niece sits quietly in her grief. It’s almost as if the alarm is set for the niece, it brings her out of her daze of memories and back to reality with tasks at hand. As the most responsible of the family and her aunt’s favorite relative, she is left with the requests of her late aunt. She just needed a moment to herself, in that rocking chair before she greeted the autumn storm with a grin but necessary look.
a box of tent pegs
in the widow’s trash
spring morning
Montgomery, Modern Haiku 19:3
In this haiku, found in Modern Haiku, Carol Montgomery, once again, discusses the subject of death. Yet, she doesn’t involve the reader in the same stage of death as she did in “Autumn Storm” (see previous discussion). This time the reader is introduced to the period after the funeral has happened. A box of tent pegs in the widow’s trash leads the reader to imagine that camping was one of the deceased husband’s favorite activities or possibly that the couple used to go camping together. Yet, as he has passed away, the widow no longer goes camping. She may have tried camping without him once but found the experience too painful to repeat.
This brings the reader as to why the box of tent pegs is in the trash. With her husband not around to enjoy or use the camping gear, she disposes it so that it’s not around to amplify her feelings of loneliness. The trashcan is full of his old camping equipment, and the box of tent pegs lies on top. This is why the box of tent pegs is the item the reader focuses on; it would be the first item one would see if glancing at the widow’s trash.
Montgomery expands the vision of the widow’s story at the current time and the atmosphere with the phrase spring morning. Harsh feelings, loneliness, and cold are not associated with spring; they are associated more with winter and autumn as discussed previously in Montgomery’s work. Spring is associated with birth, newness, and crisp fresh air. It is the end of the depression and cold brought by winter. A new era begins especially in the life of the widow. She is over her initial grieving period and the extreme depression that followed. Now, she is trying to start new. The spring morning marks her trying to truly live, instead of being a victim of grief, for the first time since her husband passed. Even though she is throwing away the objects that may trigger memories and hold her back (i.e. the box of tent pegs), she is not ridding herself completely of his memory. Not all of his possessions lie in the trash. She has to move on with the rest of her life, and like the baby animals born in the spring, she has to start gaining her independence, not from her parents, but the memory of her husband.
young widow
asks for another
fortune cookie
George Swede, Almost Unseen, 77
a box of tent pegs
in the widow’s trash
spring morning
Montgomery, Modern Haiku 19:3
As seen through the haiku found in George Swede’s collection, entitled Almost Unseen published by Brooks Books, and the previously discussed haiku by Carol Montgomery found in Modern Haiku, both Swede and Montgomery cover the difficult topic of death through the eyes of a widow. In Swede’s haiku, he describes the widow as young with a wry sense of humor. Without this humor she would not have asked for another fortune; it seems that Swede developed the humor as a coping mechanism for the widow. With this in mind, the word young can be interpreted as the woman being young in age or that the death of her husband was recent, and she hasn’t had time to regain her footing as the widow Montgomery describes has.
The widow in Montgomery’s poem is not defined by an age, but one can deduce that the death of her husband wasn’t recent. As already mentioned, the tent pegs that have been thrown out are most likely her husband’s, which shows the widow trying to move on with the rest of her life. The spring morning relates to her new chapter in life and the season.
While Swede provides a small amount of comic relief to the topic of death and Montgomery doesn’t, she does provide more of an overall scene into the life of the widow, even if it is at that one particular moment. As she also blends the seasonal element of nature into that of the widow’s life, Montgomery’s haiku is the winner of the two.
hearing us argue
our old dog tiptoes past
her empty water bowl
Montgomery, Haiku Anthology, 123
In her haiku published in Haiku Anthology published by W.W. Norton and Company Ltd., Carol Montgomery continues with focusing on the darker side of life, Carol Montgomery focuses on a household where a couple is fighting (Van Den Heuvel 123). She begins with the argument but immediately switches to the perspective of the couple’s dog. As the dog is old, the couple must have been together for a long time, and their relationship is beginning to rot with its age as seen through the eyes of the dog. The dog tiptoes past as if she knows how to handle the situation which can only mean that the couple has fought before; otherwise, the dog wouldn’t have known to walk quietly past without drawing attention to herself even though her water bowl is empty.
Montgomery paints the image that the couple seems to fight so frequently that they have been neglecting their dog. It’s almost as if fighting with each other takes priority over taking care of the dog, even to the point that the dog’s water bowl is empty. Water is essential for life, and it can have a double understanding within the poem. There is the literal interpretation of water in the dog’s bowl; then, there is an interpretation that reflects upon the state of the couple’s marriage. When the dog’s water bowl is empty, as it is in the haiku, the couple is fighting, and their relationship is dissolving. It has no life left in it. When the water bowl was always full, the relationship was thriving. Both the man and woman were healthy, enjoying life. In turn, they took care in everyone and everything around them. Life, in general, thrived. Now those days are over, and their dog avoids drawing attention to herself although her water dish is dry.
old woman, wrapping
her cat’s gifts
—centering the bows
Montgomery, Haiku Anthology, 123
Again Carol Montgomery writes a haiku on a topic most people tend to ignore, spinsters (Van Den Heuvel 123). The woman in the haiku is meticulously wrapping the gifts for her cat, putting all the love and care she can muster into perfecting the appearance of the present. One can assume that she is wrapping Christmas presents because it is unlikely she is celebrating the cat’s birthday.
With this in mind, most people picture Christmas as being spent with lots of family members, specifically their children and significant other. This woman is putting a great amount of effort into the presents for her cat. If she is centering the bows, the bow must match the decorative wrapping paper. The effort she spends on the presents for her cat is almost specifically for her comfort. This cat is her loved one. It may be the only friend she has left and that fills the void of never having a husband. The cats are colorblind and are unable to open the gifts; she is the one who has to open the gifts she carefully wrapped.
Yet, when she wraps the presents for her cat, it makes her feel complete and not so alone. By concentrating on her cats, the old woman can experience Christmas. It may not be in the traditional way, but it’s still celebrated. The spinster’s life, hope and love are found through her interaction with the cat which Montgomery clearly describes.
second husband
painting the fence
the same green
Montgomery, Haiku Anthology, 123
Although it’s not as evident as in the other haiku discussed by Carol Montgomery, there is a darker undertone to this haiku, and just as she has been creating vivid images in her other haiku using darker common occurrences, she paints a vivid image within this haiku (Van Den Heuvel 123). Depending on one’s interpretation, it may include death or divorce and longing for the past.
The presence of death or divorce is found it the first line of the haiku. The fact that it is the woman’s second husband means that she is obviously no longer with her first husband. There are two basic interpretations of how she is no longer with her first husband: either she divorced him or she is a widow. Neither interpretation paints a happy atmosphere, but there’s the chance that her second husband makes her happier than the first, especially if the first marriage ended in divorce.
When reading the next two lines of the haiku, the reader does not find that happy atmosphere. Instead, Montgomery paints a clear picture of longing for the past and submission to a life that wasn’t envisioned. The second husband is painting the fence the exact same green that it originally was. Once can assume that he woman hasn’t moved from the house that she had lived in with her first husband, and he had originally painted the fence green. By having her second husband paint he fence the same color as her first husband did, it seem that the woman doesn’t want her life to change. She was happy while with her first husband, and for some reason, she no longer is with him. The second husband is there to fill the void left in her life by her first husband; she has him modeling his actions be the actions of her first husband. He seems to realize this, but he doesn’t seem to care because he is doing her bidding and trying to make her happy. It’s almost as if he accepts that he is her second choice and not her true love, but he loves her to the point hat he doesn’t care as long as she is in her life.
in my silver
wedding shoes
… spider webs
Montgomery, Haiku Moment, 138
Within this haiku, Montgomery takes the common event of cleaning or looking in one’s closet and paints an image (Ross 138). A woman can be seen looking at the items in the bottom of her closet because either she is trying to clean the closet or find an item she had put there a long time ago. As she sits back on her legs and pulls out the faded cardboard box that hold her wedding shoes, she smiles to herself as the memories come back. She has not looked at her shoes in a long time; too busy with everyday life, the woman has little time to reflect on the present, let alone on the past. Today, when she opens the box containing her shoes, she finds the perfect silver wedding shoes filled with spider webs reminding her how little she time she takes to relax and spend time with her husband.
I shake the vase
a bouquet of red roses
finds its shape
Peggy Lyles, To Hear The Rain, 49
a teaspoon of sugar
added to the water
… stolen delphiniums
Carol Montgomery, Frogpond 15:1
The haiku by Peggy Lyles, found in her collection entitled To Hear The Rain published by Brooks Books, centers around the theme of flowers, in this case roses (Lyles 49). When one reads it, they can picture a man who is about to surprise his wife with a bouquet of roses. He has put them in a vase on the kitchen counter for her to find in the morning, but the bouquet doesn’t look quite right. Out of desperation, he shakes the vase which finally fixes the arrangement.
Carol Montgomery’s haiku, found in the haiku collection Frogpond, also follows the theme of flowers but in a different manner. The delphiniums may still be a gift, even though they are stolen, but no one is defined as taking care of them. They may already be a perfected table centerpiece, and the woman of the household is bustling around the kitchen. The man who stole the delphiniums is sitting at the table watching his wife and grinning to himself about how she doesn’t know.
Lyles’ haiku paints a more vivid image about the flowers than Montgomery’s haiku. This may be because Lyles’ haiku presents a more universal picture; everyone has seen a man surprising his significant other with a bouquet of roses whether in real life or on television. Not everyone may have seen delphiniums, let alone stolen ones. With this in mind, Lyles’ haiku wins this flowers haiku comparison.
Carol Montgomery tends to focus on common themes and events for the topics of her haiku while a majority of the haiku community focuses on nature. Priding themselves on being able to pull a reader into a sensory environment with three lines, they set the definitions and guidelines for good haiku. Although Montgomery doesn’t use their preferred topic for her haiku, she meets their requirements and their standards of well written haiku by being able to constantly being able to pull the reader into a well developed scene or situation, as she has proved by winning various haiku contests.
Works Cited
Lyles, Peggy. To Hear the Rain. Decatur, IL: Brooks Books, 2002.
Montgomery, Carol. Modern Haiku. 19:3. (1998). no pages given.
Montgomery, Carol. Frogpond. 15:1. (1992): 2.
Swede, George. Almost Unseen. Decatur, IL. Brooks Books, 2000.
Van Den Heuvel, Cor. The Haiku Anthology. 3rd edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1999.
Ross, Bruce. Haiku Moment: An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku. Boston: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1993.
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