Bri Hill • Bri's Haiku •

Peggy Lyles: A Part of her Poetry “Haiku merge images from the exterior world with the landscape of the poet’s heart so effectively that a receptive and fully participatory reader can become part of the poem, too” (Peggy Lyles, To Hear the Rain, 125). Intriguing me to further explore her haiku, these words by Peggy Lyles embody the very essence of her haiku aesthetic. First of all, the phrase “the landscape of the poet’s heart” subtly implies the source from which she writes her own haiku, which she reveals more clearly later in her book and which can be easily recognized within her work. Lyles acknowledges two primary sources from which she writes: memory and her own sensory experiences. The most intriguing aspect of Lyles’s use of personal material in haiku composition, however, is her ability to let her own presence fade from the poem in order to allow the readers to experience the haiku in a way that is personal and meaningful to them. In the quotation above, Lyles acknowledges this ability of hers to fade out of the poem in order to create a more universal effect with the explanation of her desire for the reader to “become part of the poem.” The third element of Lyles’s haiku aesthetic that makes her work so successful has to do with the merging of external images with an internal world, that she also mentioned in the opening quotation. These three elements of Lyles’s haiku make up the essence of her art: her use of personal sensory experiences and memories, her ability to remove her presence from the poem, and her ability to merge the inner world of humanity with their surrounding world. The strength of Lyles’s haiku lies in its extremely vivid and powerful description of more than just one sensory image in the presentation of a specific, isolated moment of experience. Lyles explains that she recognizes these sort of “natural juxtapositions” of multiple sensory perceptions in the world around her and uses them within her haiku (Lyles, To Hear the Rain, 125). For instance, Lyles wrote: downpour a whelk’s foot stretches toward the waves Lyles, To Hear the Rain, 98 When I first read this poem, I envisioned a beach on a chilly spring morning, on which the sky is overcast. As I stood looking out at the beach, however, I imagined that I suddenly experienced the sensation of cold raindrops exploding from the sky and piercing my skin. I could even hear them pounding against the sand and the wooden path leading back to the house. As I began to run for cover, however, I noticed a whelk standing calmly in the sand and leisurely stretching his foot toward the waves in the water. Noticing that he was not bothered by the rain and felt no sense of urgency to escape it, I was immediately calmed and felt at peace in the midst of the storm. The vivid image created by this poem comes directly from Lyles’s simple presentation of various sensory perceptions, the cold of the rain, the gray color of the sky, the sound of the heavy raindrops, the smell of the ocean, and the sight of the whelk. By simply reporting these “natural juxtapositions,” her haiku becomes extremely powerful in its effect. In addition to this sort of direct representation of juxtaposed sensory experiences, Lyles also writes from her memories. She explains in her book that “Memory plays a part or a particular emotion that triggers an active search to convey it”(Lyles, To Hear the Rain, 125). In other words, she begins her compositional process with a particular memory and then searches for a way to convey it to her readers in terms of a concrete experience. For example, Lyles wrote: honeysuckle we open jelly jars for fireflies Lyles, To Hear the Rain, 104 When I first read this haiku, I envisioned small children on a late summer night excitedly setting out jelly jars in order to trap a few of the large number of fireflies that they see flashing about their heads. While they set out to trap those fireflies, they enjoy the smell of the honeysuckle that fills the air and invades their noses. Although this haiku clearly seems to be recalling a childhood memory, the image produced is one that appeals to various senses. The smell of the honeysuckle, the sensation of holding the smooth, cool glass of the jelly jar, the vision of the nighttime, and the movement of the flashing lights of the fireflies are all concrete images that convey this memory in a way that allows the reader to see, feel, and smell it. Although Lyles recognizes her reliance on memory and personal sensory perceptions as a source for her haiku composition, she still has the ability to remove her presence from the poem in order to give her poems a more universal appeal. As she wrote in her book, “The poet brings her whole life’s experience, everything she is, to each one, and at the same time virtually disappears into the details of the poem’s moment”(Lyles, To Hear the Rain, 125). Lyles approaches this technique in one of two ways, the first of which is to remove herself completely from the haiku. For instance, Lyles wrote: reaching for green pears— the pull of an old scar Lyles, To Hear the Rain, 86 Upon my initial reading of this haiku, I imagined myself outside and dressed in old rugged jeans and a stained t-shirt. Standing on my tiptoes, I stretched my arm as far as I could in order to reach the green pears on the top branch of the tree. As I fully extended my arm, however, I felt a slight resistant tug that reminded me of an old scar that I had long forgotten about. I then imagined that I fell into memories of how I had first gotten that scar. What is most apparent in this poem is the complete absence of the author. Although this is the presentation of a concrete moment that is most likely born out of Lyles’s life experiences, she removes any trace of her involvement and presents her readers with a series of sensations that allow them to experience the poem for themselves in a much more personal manner. The focus is on the moment presented in the poem, rather than on the author or the author’s own reaction to the experience. The second way in which Lyles approaches the removal of the author’s presence from her poems does not involve complete removal of all mention of herself; instead, Lyles simply shifts the focus of the poem to the concrete sensory experiences that she presents rather than dwelling on her brief appearance in the poem. For example, Lyles wrote: moon and melon cooling with us in the stream Lyles, To Hear the Rain, 55 When I initially read this haiku, I imagined myself leisurely stretching out in the middle of a stone in the cool stream with a close friend on a hot and sticky summer night. Enjoying the taste and cooling effect of the juicy melon and staring at the bright glow of the moon in the sky, the two of us take notice of the moon’s reflection on the water and playfully imagine that it is sitting with us in the stream to cool as well. Although Lyles includes the word “us” in this haiku, she certainly does not focus on the inclusion of that phrase. Instead, she shifts her emphasis of the important elements of the poem away from the use of a personal term with a vivid description of the moment that engages all of the reader’s senses. Because the readers loose themselves in the vision of the moon and its reflection, the heat of the night, the coolness of the melon, and the movement of the water on their skin, they certainly experience the moment first hand. Due to this shift of emphasis, the term “us” becomes a more general term that the readers can then adopt as their own. They can imagine that they are the ones using the word to describe themselves and whoever they imagine to be with them in that moment. In addition to her ability to disappear from her own haiku, Lyles uses yet another technique that allows her poems to powerfully impact her audience. She manages to uniquely combine the inner world of human thought and experience with the outside world by using a nature reference in her haiku. By doing so, she demonstrates how things that people perceive outside of themselves actually grow from or are extensions of their inner lives. A large number of her poems employ this interesting technique, for example: dress by dress the story of her life day lilies close Lyles, To Hear the Rain, 83 When I first read this poem, I imagined a woman sorting through old dresses that have long been hidden away in various trunks in her mother’s attic. Finally ready to get rid of those dresses, she slowly goes through them, taking note of each one and remembering the scenes from her life that correspond with it. As she relives those moments of her past, she acknowledges the fact that she is finally putting to rest a chapter of her life. Although this moment seems to have little to do with nature and the world surrounding the woman, the idea of the day lilies closing effectively echoes the sense of closure in the woman’s life as she cleans out the trunks. This echoed sense of closure with the closing of the day lilies intimately connects a single moment of one woman’s inner self with the larger world around her. Although Lyles effectively makes use of this sort of reference to nature in order to connect the people’s inner worlds with their larger surroundings in a many of her haiku, she also makes this same sort of connection between inner and outer in the absence of any reference to nature. For instance, Lyles wrote: traffic jam my small son asks who made God Lyles, To Hear the Rain, 57 When I first read this haiku, I envisioned a mother sitting in the driver’s seat, frustrated with being stuck in the middle of a traffic jam. Lost in her own frustrations with her predicament and her worries of being late to work, she is caught off guard when her small son asks such a profound question. In this poem, the traffic jam reflects the inner worlds of both the mother and the small child. Inwardly, the mother feels trapped by her son’s question, not knowing how best to answer it. That feeling is clearly echoed with the outside scene of the traffic jam, in which she is literally trapped. The son’s mind, however, is lost in deep pondering and is actually quite still and unperturbed as he awaits his answer. That slow-paced thought process is also echoed by the traffic jam in that the cars are barely moving. Although their inner worlds are drastically different, they both echo the situation of their outward predicament. Two different tones were set by two different people in this poem due to their perceptions of the same event in the outside world. Therefore, this poem is a perfect example of how Lyles intimately ties the inner and outer by showing that the human perception of the outer world is actually only a reflection of their inner worlds without any reference to nature. Initially intrigued to study Lyles’s haiku by her own summation of what she considers to be her poetry’s essence, I found that she was quite accurate in her summary. She effectively uses memories and personal sensory perceptions as source materials, manages to depersonalize her haiku in order to give it a more universal appeal, and uniquely shows the intricate connection between the inner and outer dimensions of the human experience. Through her mastery of all these techniques, she has become one of my favorite haiku poets, because she has managed to reach me on a much deeper level. In my reading of her haiku, I have, as she wished, “become part of her poems.” —Bri Hill