Brock Peoples • Brock's Haiku • Profile on Southard

Zen in America: The haiku of American poet O Mabson Southard Southard began writing haiku in response to a newfound interest in eastern thought; especially Taoism and Zen Buddhism. In the preface to a forthcoming book of Southard haiku, his daughter, Barbara Southard, writes that he "strongly believed that haiku should be based on concrete experience, and his keen observation of nature was cultivated in the course of frequent wanderings in the wilderness." This combination of Zen principles and a close relationship with the natural world let O Mabson Southard to write a large number of haiku dealing almost completely with nature and natural beauty. The Zen principles of "wordless" (brevity and incompleteness), "suchness" (things are included within themselves, just as they are), "nothing special" (ordinary events and things), "season word," "selfless" (the haiku are not about the author), and "oneness" (everything is connected) that are discussed in Eric Amann’s The Wordless Poem: A Study of Zen in Haiku are prevalent in O Southard’s work. Something that I find extraordinarily interesting about Southard’s work is its structure. First of all, he is one of the few American Haiku poets who write in 5-7-5 syllable format. Also, he uses punctuation in almost every haiku he writes. Almost all end with a period of exclamation mark, giving the appearance of one, sometimes two sentences within the haiku. He also uses the em-dash and ellipses throughout his work as transitions. He usually shapes his haiku by indenting the lines in a stair-step effect. In order to fully appreciate the haiku of O Mabson Southard, I think that it is important to note that Southard was a person who did not follow conventions. He was a Marxist and a Socialist, he fought for Civil Rights, and later in his life he was a feminist. He did not maintain a conventional career of any kind, according to his daughter, "he believed that striving for money and success stunted real intellectual growth and made emotional growth impossible." Instead, he spent his life traveling and exploring the world around him. Together with an interest in eastern philosophies, the mix of ideas and experiences is reflected throughout his life’s work in haiku. The following represent a selection of O Southard’s haiku that I feel are among his best. These haiku come from the manuscript of the forthcoming Brooks Books publication Deep Shade, Flickering Sunlight. Some have been published before as well. On the top fence-rail      he lights, knocking off some snow—           a common sparrow. This haiku presents an image of a fresh snowfall. The writer is looking out over the scene and happens to notice a common sparrow landing, knocking snow to the ground as he does. This event is a small and mundane. Even the bird himself is nothing special, just a common sparrow. However, Southard chose it to be a haiku moment because of these very characteristics. Just the cellarpit;      only the catbird recalls           the swing of the gate. In this haiku, the writer has come across a cellarpit, which is all that remains of an old homestead. I myself have come across a similar ghost: the remains of steel rafters and a concrete pump house foundation forming one side of a spring’s basin. The feeling that such places radiate is one of longing and of remembrance of days long gone, but also of serenity. Nature reclaims what was once hers. Southard describes a scene in which a catbird gives a call resembling a sound that may once have been made by the long-gone gate. I feel that this is an excellent haiku moment. A bar of iron—      upon the old wall, it throws           so soft a shadow! This haiku is an excellent demonstration of Zen principles. The "suchness" of the image of the iron bar and its shadow, that it is included as itself and is its own meaning. Also, the idea of "nothing special" is here, as well as "selfless," in that the author does not put himself in the image at all. What I love about this haiku is the contradiction between the cold hard iron and its soft shadow. This haiku gives me a picture of summer when the window shades are drawn up and the windows are open to let the breeze in. The iron bar’s soft shadow has also conveyed a sense of warmth for me as well, another contradiction to the cold steel. In the sea, sunset . . .      On the dark dune, a bright fringe           of waving grasses. The beautiful image of the dune’s grasses illuminated from the setting Hawaiian sun streams from this haiku. The sunset is painting the sea, but shadow already lies over the land. The exception are the grasses fringing the sand dune, they are still basking in the sun’s warmth and light. This haiku is another representation of Southard’s tendency to observe details of nature and write haiku on these events and images that the average person does not even stop to notice. Past the smoke-column      lit up by my new-fed fire—           the sweep of an owl. I imagine Southard on one of his many excursions into the wilds with his wife and their friends, sitting by a small but blazing fire with a small note pad on his knee. He leans back and closes his eyes for a moment and inhales the clean air of the wilderness. As he opens his eyes, he glimpses in the firelight an owl passing swiftly from the darkness and back again. At this moment, he writes the haiku that would become this one, giving us one of the few haiku he wrote on nature that are not "selfless." Even though he does not follow this one Zen principal here, I still feel that this is an excellent haiku. It also serves as a memory-trigger of many fond memories of the campfire for myself as well. Boating, we make love . . .      Her sudden joy sweeps us both           through a batch of waves O and Malia shared a passionate relationship, if at times eccentric. Of her parents, Barbara Southard says that they "were devoted to each other, theirs was an open relationship that did not preclude other passionate attachments." This haiku captures the great passion and pleasure that can come from physical love, as "her" orgasm is strong enough to carry O Mabson and "her" through a batch of waves. Sex is a popular theme in poetry, but not one that I have seen often in haiku. This haiku treats the act of physical love as something beautiful that the couple is sharing with each other, and with the sea around them. The old rooster crows . . .      Out of the mist come the rocks           and the twisted pine. This haiku is probably my favorite out of all of O Mabson Southard’s work. It combines serenity and revelation with a morning mist. The crowing of the rooster places the reader automatically at dawn, with this mist of the second line reinforcing the image. The rocks and the pine are revealed slowly as the mist moves through the valley. This is also an acute observation of nature, which Southard is a master at capturing in haiku. The haiku also follows Zen principles in its subject and form, capturing the suchness of the moment splendidly. So my eyes may rest—      my comet-watching sister           lets me comb her hair According to Barbara Southard, O Mabson Southard and his sister were extremely close throughout their lives. This haiku captures that closeness as the two share an intimate moment while comet-watching. Southard’s eyes have grown tired of straining to see the comet, so, he combs his sister’s hair instead. She allows him to do so as she continues to watch the comet in the sky above. While this haiku does not follow Zen principles as closely as others Southard wrote, it is still a wonderful haiku illustrating the beautiful relationship Southard shared with his sister. Chanting, the pond’s frogs . . .      among the lilies’ dark pads—           the twinkle of stars Frogs have always been a favorite topic for haiku writers and Southard is not without his frog haiku. These small creatures that are so often ignored in our busy day-to-day lives often fill the night with enchanting music. In this haiku, Southard is painting the image of the frogs’ song at night, with the stars splashed across the heavens and reflecting from the pond. This haiku is also another example of a haiku that follows most of the Zen principles discussed earlier. The haiku of O Southard are excellent in their structure, language, wordings, and Zen principals. Also, Southard is a master at capturing haiku moments that show us the little things that we often miss as well as the endless beauty of nature. He succeeded in writing haiku in 5-7-5 form that is both well written, and that has stood the test of time. It has been 35 years since the publication of O Southard’s one and only collection of poetry, and his work speaks clearly to the haiku writers and readers of today. —Brock Peoples