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Love & Experimentation in the Haiku of Raymond Roseliep
by Erin Knott
Raymond Roseliep [1917-1983], an extremely well known poet of his time, was ordained into priesthood in 1943 at the Catholic University of America. Three years later, he was appointed to the Department of English at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. He taught there for over twenty years. During those years, he received an M.A. from the Catholic University of America and a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame (A Roseliep Retrospective, back flap). He has published numerous books of poetry and haiku including Rabbit on the Moon, Listen to Light, The Earth We Swing On, and The Still Point, along with many others.
His haiku have been very influential to American haiku tradition. He encourages experimenting within haiku. His haiku are also very strongly directed towards the theme of love. Love of humankind, love of animals, love of the Earth, love in general. He writes to be in the moment, appreciating everything in life.
Raymond Roseliep was always drawn to haiku. As quoted in Sister Mary Thomas Eulberg’s essay, “Poet of Finespun Filaments: Raymond Roseliep” he once stated, “The haiku was something else. A continuation, I suppose, or an extension of this pairing-down that I was always demanding in others and striving for in myself (Dayton, 13).” His haiku are very short and true to life. When asked why he liked haiku in an interview with M. R. Doty, he said, “Well, I’ve always admired reduction, brevity, Greek Anthology terseness, and Emily Dickinson’s gnomic compression. And I like the asymmetry of the three lines, the challenge of getting the right thing in the right place (Dayton, 23).”
Although many of his haiku were written in the traditional three-line form, he enjoyed experimenting with the form of the haiku. An example of this is his haiku:
C
h
g
i
h
Pavarotti’s
bittersweet unsplit
Roseliep, RitM, 74
His use of the form of the helps this haiku become even better. Roseliep is talking about very high note, so it is fitting that the words themselves go up. It helps the reader to visualize an image as they are reading the haiku. You can see Pavarotti striving to get to a high C. The note is so high it pierces your eardrums, yet it is so amazing.
Roseliep is also a very accomplished lyric poetry writer. His first poem that he ever had published was one he wrote in the seventh grade. When he was in high school, he entered poems into a school-wide contest and he ended up taking all three top prizes and every honorable mention. He was then asked to give up all of his titles except the highest in order to give the other students a chance to win [Dayton, 11]. As he got older, he continued to write poetry. His poetry became much more free form, not following many rules poetry tended to follow.
Roseliep enjoyed writing haiku because it can tell entire stories in a very small amount of words. When asked in an interview with M. R. Doty what Roseliep believes haiku are able to hold, he states, “Everything! Like this one:
binocular
and bird forgotten—
the son’s return
There’s a full-length drama here—a whole story compressed (Dayton, 25).” Roseliep is able to get an entire story into that one short haiku he wrote. As I read the haiku within the quote, I pictured a mother out bird watching. She is sitting on her porch, looking for a cardinal, blackbird, or any other bird she can find and all of a sudden she sees a familiar car pulling around the corner. As the car parks in front of her house, out steps her son, who she has not seen in two years. He had joined the army and hadn’t been able to come home. She drops her binoculars in surprise, forgetting all about the birds she had previously been so interested in, running to her son to embrace him. Out of a total of 7 words, I was able to picture an entire story in my mind. That is what Roseliep finds so beautiful about haiku.
Roseliep began his writing career writing mostly about Catholicism and religion. It was natural because he spent so much time thinking about religion. His Catholic roots were seen in his haiku. Most of his haiku initially were celebrating his religion, reflecting upon it or questioning it. He wrote:
the Mass priest
holds up bread
the still point
Roseliep, TSP, 26
This haiku is mostly reflecting upon a Catholic mass. During a service, the priest holds up the bread and the whole congregation is completely silent. This isn’t necessarily questioning or celebrating Catholicism, it is simply showing an occurrence. This haiku however is more questioning than anything else.
“Jesus,
I believe?”
“Buddha”
Roseliep, TSP, 29
This haiku leaves me wondering what he could mean. To me, it seems to be questioning the truth in religion. However, that doesn’t seem like something a Catholic priest would do. Knowing the writer, as well as the topic of the poem, it leaves many questions in my mind.
After spending many years writing mostly religious haiku, Roseliep began to write Roseliepian love poetry. In the article entitled “Poet of Finespun Filament: Raymond Roseliep” he stated, “To talk about that, I should return for a moment to that ‘Catholic-poetry’ period of mine, and I can briefly tell you how it was inevitable that I needed a fresh theme. In those early days I was writing about the Mass, the sacraments, parish experiences, religious encounters of all dimensions – in people, nature, anywhere. So, when I vacated the Ghetto, I needed a new outlook. I knew that religious poetry and love poetry are the hardest of all to write, and since I hadn’t attained full success in the one, I would try the other. And I have been exploring the love theme ever since. It’s wonderful. It keeps me alive and young and remembering; and always with feelings that are deepest and most sacred in all of us (Dayton, 13).” This can be seen in his countless number of love haiku. An example of this is:
wind on the flesh,
what’s left
of the moon
Roseliep, LtL, 45
When reading this haiku, I imagine two lovers, spending the night together. They have been camping and when they look up at the sky, they notice the sun is rising, wondering how night is already over. It seemed like it had just begun. This seems a little risqué to be written by a Catholic priest, but what Roseliep is essentially focusing on is love. He states, “Not to love greatly in a human way would make it practically impossible for me to love the hills and trees and birds and flowers, rivers and seas with their fish and exotic forms of life, skies and swirling planets, animals and insects and reptiles—the bright and beautiful, the great and small of creation (Dayton, 14).” After reading his quote, it is clear that it is not even slightly strange for a priest to be writing about love, since it is in his nature to love everything. He not only feels love for humans and appreciates other human’s love; he loves animals, the universe and all of life’s small miracles. He shows this more indirectly in another haiku. He wrote:
cat smile
is what
is left
Roseliep, TSP, 11
Although it is not clearly about love, I feel that emotion very strongly as I read his haiku. I imagine a woman who has been sitting by the fire reading as she is petting her cat. It gets to be late in the night and she decides to go to bed. She puts out the fire, quietly says good night to the cat who had fallen asleep on the fireplace as she was petting him and slowly walks up the stairs. As the bedroom door closes, the cat’s eyes crack open. He stretches, purring ever so slightly, turns around and goes back to sleep. Although not everyone will have this same reading, it still shows the connection Roseliep feels with the cat. All of nature, to him, is something to be loved and appreciated.
He has written haiku very similar to the themes of Basho, though he does not follow all of Basho’s rules completely. In an interview with M.R. Doty, he once stated, “Though I have a profound devotion to the best of the Japanese haiku writers, I aim not to imitate them by trying to squeeze a season-word into every haiku, coming up with an exact 17-syllable count each time or adopting various other strictures favored by Oriental poets. I’m simply finding my way into my own form, using many of the techniques sacred to Western poetry as a whole. I’m striking to capture the American experience, to draw from the bottomless ocean of our own culture and values. I do want to say, though, that I make every effort to retain as much of the magical and indefinable spirit of Japanese haiku as I possibly can; not to do so would be to deny the existence of soul in haiku (Dayton, 24).” Still, although he doesn’t exactly pertain to Basho’s rules, his haiku are very similar at times. For example, Roseliep once wrote:
small frogs
learning to become
notes
Roseliep, TEWSO, 44
A frog also makes an appearance in one of Matsuo Basho’s most famous haiku. He wrote:
The old pond—
A frog leaps in,
And a splash.
Basho, MB, 53
These haiku are not only similar in the topic they are written on, but also in how they are written. Both haiku have a lot of sound associated with how they are written. In Roseliep’s haiku, you can hear the sound of the frog singing his song. I imagine a bunch of frogs in a row, all of them are croaking, singing a song, in their own strange way. Basho’s haiku doesn’t have the sound of frogs croaking. Instead he has the splash of the frog as it jumps into the pond. However, they are different in that Roseliep’s haiku centers more on how the frogs are feeling as they become the notes. It almost humanizes them since they are “learning” which isn’t usually associated with frogs. This shows his typical theme of love. He knows that frogs, as insignificant as they may seem, should be loved too. Personifying the frog has this effect on the poem. Basho’s haiku is mostly on the observer of the frog, not the frog itself. As I imagine each haiku, I imagine being the frog in Roseliep’s haiku and being someone watching the frog in Basho’s haiku.
Raymond Roseliep’s goal for American haiku is to be adventurous. Nothing stays interesting if it is always the same. This is why Roseliep believes American haiku can differ from traditional Japanese haiku. Japanese haiku is beautiful and works excellently, but people need to experiment. In his haiku book, The Still Point, he writes, “The Still Point is experience and experiment. American haiku will cease to be adventuresome if we suddenly stop for breath. Like Basho’s frog, we must keep plunging. Eastern and Western frogs do, of course, not all make the same sound (Roseliep, TSP, introduction).” He wrote The Still Point as he was recovering from the surgery. This gave him the time he wanted to do the experimenting he wanted to do. Some examples from this experimenting include his haiku:
shadow
is
I too
Roseliep, TSP, 21
It is very simple, but he seems to be experimenting in how much he can say in so few words. Many things can be imagined from this haiku. I personally picture a young child. The sun is just past where it is at high noon and he is staring at his shadow. He contemplates what it is he is looking at. He moves slightly and is startled that his shadow moves with him. He tests out what his shadow will do and won’t do and he discovers that everything he does is followed by his shadow. With that, he decides, without knowing exactly how, that his shadow is a part of him.
Not only is he experimenting in topic and length of haiku, he is also experimenting with the form of haiku. Many of his haiku are written in a way that shows the meaning or an image within the haiku. For example his haiku:
our kiss
emptying
space
Roseliep, LTL, 45
This haiku is very expansive in the form that it is written in. It speaks about emptying space, and the haiku is very spaced out. It helps the reader to visualize what he wants them to notice within the haiku.
The overlying theme of all of Raymond Roseliep’s haiku and poetry seems to be love and experimentation. A majority of his haiku, creative in nature of how they are written, by topic and by how they are physically written, speak of love. Love of yourself, love of human kind, love of animals, essentially love of everything. Also, with his religious background, all of his haiku has an underlying religious aspect to it. In “Devilish Wine,” he wrote, ‘For my own banner I’ve inscribed George Eliot’s cadence, “Love is the word of all work.’ Through my poems I try to incarnate spiritual reality and spiritualize or humanize material reality. Engaging in this transfiguration of matter keeps me aware that my gift is from God. Any poet would be a bonehead to claim otherwise. The one thing our poems must do, as Auden said, is to praise all they can for being and happening (Dayton, 17).” Everything Roseliep writes is in the moment. As Bill Pauly writes when speaking about Roseliep’s book of haiku entitled The Still Point. Raymond Roseliep’s haiku “is a wondrous dance of life, love, joy, death, and pivotal human points between. It is experiment and experience—images drawn from reality and refined by a master wordworker into revelations of sheer existence, in a time that is always now (Dayton, 45).” Raymond Roseliep was extremely influential in poetry and especially haiku with his new inventive style and a fresh outlook on what haiku should be.
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Works Cited
Dayton, David, ed. A Roseliep Retrospective. Ithaca, New York: Alembic Press, 1980
Roseliep, Raymond. The Earth We Swing On. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Alembic Press, 1984
Roseliep, Raymond. Listen to Light. Ithaca, New York: Alembic Press, 1980
Roseliep, Raymond. Rabbit in the Moon. Plainfield, Indiana: Alembic Press, 1983
Roseliep, Raymond. The Still Point. Menomonie, Wisconsin: UZZANO, 1979
Ueda, Makoto. The Master Haiku Poet Matsuo Basho. Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha International, 1982
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