Lidonna Beer • see Lidonn's Essay Responses to Lyles

An Interview with Peggy Willis Lyles >Where does your inspiration for haiku come from? Lyles: Usually from the sensory experiences that surround everyday life, the tastes, smells, textures, sounds and sights of the world close at hand. Sometimes I simply report what I experience—a towhee's song coinciding with a fragrant breeze or sleet with an eclipse of the moon. Such natural juxtapositions stir physical and emotional responses in me and are poems ripe for the taking. At other times memory plays a part or a particular emotion that triggers an active search for concrete details to convey it. I think there is a nice paradox in haiku: 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. At best 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. >When did you begin writing haiku? Lyles: I published some uninformed attempts in Haiku Headlines and a few other little magazines in the mid-Sixties. Later, the first edition of Cor van den Heuvel's The Haiku Handbook, which I found in the University of Georgia Bookstore in 1976, brought me firmly into the North American haiku movement. The haiku there still sparkle with vitality and create ever-widening ripples. The poems thrilled me with a "shock of recognition." Something fine was in progress, and references to books and contemporary haiku magazines offered first steps toward becoming part of it. >Do you have a mentor—someone who introduced you to haiku or had the most influence over your style? Lyles: I think of many haiku poets as mentors at a distance, usually teaching me through their work rather than by specific instruction. Perceptive editors, Robert Spiess in particular, have given me invaluable guidance simply by accepting some haiku and returning others. >How often do you participate in conferences and other haiku gatherings? Lyles: I attended Haiku Chicago in 1995 and look forward to the Global Haiku Festival at Millikin. In addition I meet bi-monthly with a small group of haiku enthusiasts here in the Atlanta area. >How do you edit your haiku? Lyles: Unsystematically. Sometimes repeatedly, sometimes slightly, sometimes hardly at all. Some of the best ones have claimed their right words immediately, becoming what they are in a breath's space. Other times a phrase or a pair of lines stays in a notebook for a very long time, waiting for the rest of the poem to show up. Not long ago, in the process of writing to another poet about a storm he had recently experienced, I recalled the first two lines of an eleven-year-old haiku that had never felt finished. No wonder. A hurricane changed the landscape just after I jotted the images. The "right" third line—simply "the wind"—was not part of the initial experience; it was the completion of the haiku as I re-experienced it in a new context. Technically, revisions usually involve omitting unnecessary words and sharpening word choice, rearranging lines, and bringing the sound of the poem closer to its sense. Sometimes I change the focal distance, usually moving in closer, occasionally backing off for a wider view. Often I try to "go back to the moment" to decide whether I have included the best details to shape it into a poem. Rewording to avoid confusion is important, too. Reading aloud is part of the process for me—and setting new haiku aside to re-evaluate after a "cooling off" period. >Do you have personal favorites of your haiku? Lyles: Yes, but lots of them. Here, in random order, are a few. summer night we turn out all the lights to hear the rain thunderclap the frayed shoestring snaps summer stars the dark lagoon alive with flying fish salt wind in tangled kelp small shells shine sun-splotched stone the lizard's dewlap bobbles Still at the edge of its shadow— the frog spring sunbeam the baby's toes spread apart her fine-boned hands           old china's print           of cabbage leaf twilight rain-dark buds becoming scent good-morning kiss wing beats of the hummingbird purple twilight spilling frogs Beethoven's Ninth raindrops bounce from cobblestones autumn and my son's voice deepening            the wind chimes a damp fern strokes my ankle . . . dark eyes of the doe wild persimmons a woman at the roadside wiggles her last tooth into the night we talk of human cloning snowflakes I brush my mother's hair the sparks boarding call the ripe banana flavor of the small one's cheek I am partial, too, to those in The Haiku Anthology and Global Haiku >What do you think about reading haiku out loud? Lyles: I find reading aloud an essential step in the process of composition, and highly recommend it for the individual wanting a full experience of someone else's haiku. The sound of words always matters. A long round of oral presentations, though, can strain the most receptive audience. That scenario, I believe, is best confined to haiku conferences where enthusiasts are getting to know each other and especially value the opportunity to hear poets reading their work. For more general audiences, a carefully paced, relatively brief selection of haiku, each surrounded by adequate silence and perhaps read twice, can be vivid and moving. Experiments combining haiku with other art forms, music and dance as well as painting, really intrigue me. I would especially like to see some fine filmmakers experiment with a montage presentation of haiku and images, maybe involving readers other than the authors. I love the sound of words, the varied rhythms of human speech. As more and more haiku readings occur and the poets compare notes on what works well, I believe we will tap into ever better possibilities. I hope so. For the moment, I think of haiku less as presentation poetry than as tiny word pictures for individual readers to experience and savor. Works cited Lyles, Peggy Willis. Thirty-Six Tones. Saki Press, 1999. Van den Heuvel, Cor, ed. The Haiku Anthology. W.W. Norton & Company, 1999. —Lidonna Beer