Christopher Bronke • Christopher's Haiku •

Nicholas Virgilio: the Haiku Makes the Man Some people argue that true men are defined by their actions in the face of diversity. Now, you, as the avid and experienced haiku reader, probably came to this paper looking for reactions to and reflections on the haiku poetry of Nicholas Virgilio, and that is something that you will get; which is why you may be wondering why I am speaking about true men and diversity. Well, as you will see over the course of this paper, in the case of Nicholas Virgilio haiku poetry and men in the face of diversity are as equal as the sonnet and the topic of love. In the light of today’s war in Iraq, this paper has perhaps some sort of surreal quality to it. When people think about the war, or any war for that matter, a wide variety of images come to mind. Some instantly think of the battle strategy of those at war, and the artillery that will be used. For others, war can aptly be viewed as the classic and storyesque struggle between good and evil. However, for others, war is the tragic death of those giving their lives to better the lives of others. For most of us, that dismal picture of heroism never hits any closer to home than CNN, and for that we are lucky. But, just because most of us escape war with no scares, physical or emotional, there are many who do not. It is just that for the people who do receive these physical and emotional scares of war their human instincts and ways of dealing with the emotional confusion that result from loss or pain is silence. Lucky for us, as people, and for the haiku community, Nicholas Virgilio refused to let silence be his shield from the emotional bullets of war. You see, Virgilio lost his brother to the Vietnam War. While I can not sit here and say I have any idea of what that must have been like for him or anyone in his family, I can attest to the fact that his haiku do an amazing job of capturing both his brother’s spirit and his families’ emotions in dealing with their tragic loss. This paper will examine a variety of Virgilio’s poems, all of which are dedicated to and written in the memory of his brother. I have chosen five of his poems about which to write. The first two that are worth examining are rather internal. You see, part of what makes Virgilio’s collection about his brother so wonderful is the brilliant play between Virgilio as merely the narrator and Virgilio as the person in the poem. This balance is delicately handled and is part of what makes this collection so interesting. The play between Virgilio simply narrating what he sees about how others, mainly his family, is reacting to his brother’s death contrasted by his personal observations make the emotional spectrum presented by his haiku must more intense and varied. In the first two poems we get to experience Virgilio’s personal account and experiences as they are influenced by his brother death. The first of these two poems is not only my favorite of the five that I am looking at, but is my favorite of all of Virgilio’s haiku. my dead brother . . . hearing his laugh in my laughter The Haiku Anthology, p262 In this haiku we get the first person presence of Virgilio as he is comparing his laughter to that of his brother. The poem embodies a signature of Virgilio’s “brother poems”. That signature is his bold yet powerful choice to talk directly about his “dead brother”. While many authors have talked death or dead loved ones, they talk about it from a very metaphoric and subtle point of view; however, Virgilio’s writing style is a bold one that makes the poems that much more powerful. Virgilio’s ability to directly talk about his dead brother allows him to openly and honestly express his true feelings about his brother. When it comes to this poem many things come to mind. To begin, I can not help but comment on the bitter sweet nature of this poem. You see, I have a brother and for about the first 18 years of my life, people told me that I sounded like my brother. People would call the house and always think that it was he who answered the phone, and every time it was me. I never really gave much thought to it until I went away to college and had people calling my room and every time they did, they knew it was I who answered the phone. At that point, it saddened me that I was no longer mistaken for my brother. Although I did not know it at the time, being mistaken for my older brother had become part of what I considered my identity. Well, in this haiku, I think that Virgilio has realized that his brother’s laughter was part of his identity, which for me was a very special feeling; however, I could call my brother to talk with and laugh with him, Virgilio could not. That is what creates the over whelming bitter sweet emotion in this haiku. All of this said, Virgilio is still trying to tell us something else. You see, every time he laughs it is as if his brother is right there with him laughing, too. That is what this poem is all about. No matter how much he misses his brother or how much of his identity is found in his brother, the fact that his brother is dead will never keep Virgilio, or his family, from having the brother with him, thanks to his laugh. In other words, the dead live on in and with all of us when we need them. That is why I enjoy this haiku so much, not only is it a great image of his brother laugh being part of his, but it teacher us a beautiful, bittersweet lesson. In addition to this poem, there is one more in which Virgilio places himself right into the heart of the action and emotion. adding father’s name to the family tombstone with room for my own The Haiku Anthology, p 264 While this poem lacks any of the “light at the end of the tunnel” hope that the last poem so beautifully clings to, this haiku does have something in common with the last. In addition to the fact that this poem also has Virgilio as a person in the poem, the main similarity between the last poem and this one is the way in which Virgilio illustrates his ability to find ways to be with his dead family members. In the first poem we saw him living with his dead brother via his laugh. Now we see Virgilio creating a sense of familial oneness through the use of death. In the first poem Virgilio found a way to be with his brother in life through laughter. Here we see Virgilio discovering a life with his brother in the after life. So, if we are to look at the two poems in which Virgilio places himself into the middle of the poem and the poem’s emotion, we find that Virgilio uses his haiku to explore ways in which he can be with his dead brother and celebrate his brother’s life in his own. As earlier stated, Virgilio writes two different types of poems in memory of his brother. The first, as we have seen, are the kinds in which Virgilio himself is placed right into the middle. The other, which we will examine via two of Virgilio’s haiku, is a haiku in which the life that was his brothers is celebrated and honored though the lenses of life or a second person with Virgilio as the narrator. The first of these haiku explores the death of his brother through the use of the mother. the autumn wind has torn the telegram and more from mother’s hand The Haiku Anthology, p 261 Unlike both of the poems in which Virgilio has himself placed in the middle of the scene, this poem has his mother as the main person. What that does for us as a reader is simple; placing someone else in the middle of the action allows us to see just how many people the death of his brother has affected. In this poem, we get to see that his mother has had her life “torn” apart by the death of his brother. In this haiku, Virgilio has used the telegram to not only be the literal announcement of his brother’s death, but it is symbolic of life as a whole. Just as his brother has been taken away, so has life has mother once knew it. This death has made things so that life will never be the same for her. The other wonderful thing in this poem is the use of the word autumn. This is very characteristic of Virgilio’s haiku that have someone else at the center. It is a very interesting use of the season of autumn. Most literary authors use the season winter to symbolize death. In winter, things are dead, which is why it is such a great symbol for death. However, Virgilio, when talking about his brother uses autumn. It took me a while to understand why, but I think it is more symbolic of his brother. You see, like in winter, things do begin to die in autumn; although the things that die in autumn usually die before there time has come” and are taken away before they reach their full potential. That, you see, is why it works so well for his brother, because his brother, like some things in autumn, had its life taken too soon. That is why this poem is so powerful. In a mere three lines, with a total of 12 words, this haiku has managed to paint a picture of how his brother’s death has forever changed his mother’s life, and made the sad realization of how Virgilio’s brother’s life was taken way before his time. The last haiku that I would like to examine is another poem in which Virgilio both removes himself and uses autumn to symbolize his brother’s tragic death. sixteenth autumn since: barely visible grease marks where he parked his car The Haiku Anthology, p263 Much like the last haiku, Virgilio uses autumn as a way of showing a tragic death to the author. In the last poem, one could probably get that there was a death, though, without the autumn reference, but in this haiku, without the autumn reference, one might think that someone had just moved out or gotten a new house. That is what is so brilliant about this poem. The subtlety used by Virgilio in this haiku is a brilliant and well done contrast to the bold openness of the “my dead brother” poem. In this haiku we get a look into Virgilio’s mind without him actually being in the poem. Here we see just how many little reminders one actually has when it comes to a lost love one--something as small as a grease mark on the driveway can be a constant reminder of tragic death and the cruelty and unjust nature of war. Personally, I can relate to this poem on a very surface level. You see, the first can I owned was an old, beater of a car and had a slow oil leak. So, there was always oil stains on my parents driveway. So, when I read this poem I think about that; however, until this poem, I never thought of those oil stains as something that I could someday be remembered bye. That is what makes this poem so brilliantly powerful. It shows us just how precious life is and just how many things we will be remembered for and by. What does it mean? Well, although I hate to jump to generalizations about a person based on their writings, sometimes that is what literature is about. As the title of this essay implies, Virgilio illustrates for us that sometimes the literature, in this case haiku, reveals quite a bit about the author. For example, Virgilio demonstrates his ability to be bold and open in the face of adversity. Not many authors, or people for that matter would be able to write or say something that began with “my dead brother”, but Virgilio is able to do this in a powerful yet peaceful way that creates not only an image but a wide range of passionate emotions for the reader. While that is important, Virgilio’s haiku help to reveal much more about him as a person. His writings illustrate to us that war time and death should not keep a man silent. Virgilio has shown us that speaking up and being honest with ones self and with others about how we feel, the words we use to talk about, and the emotions the come from a tragic death can not only be a form of therapy, but can reveal ones true dignity and passion as a man. But more importantly, these poems help us to see that Nicholas Virgilio, above all things, haiku poet included, was and will always be an amazing brother. —Christopher Bronke