Jenny Schultz • His Side of It: Lee Gurga's Passion for the Art of Haiku

Moving Day a collection of haiku by Jennifer L. Schultz This collection is dedicated to Travis, my enthusiastic haiku buddy, and to Stefan, for at least pretending to be interested in haiku. Author's Preface Although I have been writing haiku for almost a year now, I feel that I have grown more as a haiku author during this semester than when I first started out. Moving Day is a collection that I hope will reflect this, and in it I have included the haiku that express the unique moments I have observed—as well as some of my most heavily edited and revised poems.

Throughout most of this semester, my goal has been to concentrate on perfecting the "haiku moments," that "a-ha" that comes as a result of experiencing well-written haiku. The poems that appear in the following pages are those that I feel have best achieved this aspect of haiku. The title for this chapbook, Moving Day, was selected after I had given the rough draft of this book to my haiku buddy, Travis Meisenheimer, for review. Travis immediately responded to the "moving day" poem (even mentioning that it was his favorite out of all my work!), and as I watch my senior year of college come to a close, this title somehow seems most appropriate. The idea of moving evokes a sense of bittersweet emotions; the excitement at beginning a new life, the sadness at leaving the old one behind, the thrill and uncertainty of facing the unknown.   In some ways, I think this collection reflects that bittersweet feeling.   I hope that you, the reader, agree. I hope that within these pages, you read a haiku that evokes sadness. I hope you read one that brings feelings of joy and delight. But, most importantly, I hope you read a haiku that you truly love, one that speaks to you and brings you an enlightened moment of realization - one that makes you go "a-ha."    These are my haiku; these are my memories.  Enjoy! —Jennifer L. Schultz May 2004 Reader's Introduction I've been fortunate enough for the past year to be Jenny's haiku buddy.   I'm fortunate because I am privy to most of her haiku that she writes and because of her enthusiasm about haiku.   I think this enthusiasm is evident in a lot of her haiku because most of them evoke a strong emotional response.   One of my favorites in this collection is "moving day."   I love this one because she brings us to just the exact moment when the narrator is packing the "memory" and is reflecting on how much it means.   This double reflection isn't uncommon in her work because she tends to put us in the moment when the narrator or experiencer is reflecting on something.   In this way it reminds me of her "chocolate hearts but no one to share with" haiku. Jenny's haiku stand out from a lot of others because of this reflective quality.   A lot of her haiku seem to have a deeper emotional attachment or some deeper meaning hidden somewhere between the lines.   Even her "Matisse's Icarus" haiku evokes this deeper reflection in the way she gives us two images of the sun in the painting and the sun on the wall.   The image of the dancing Icarus and the dancing sunbeams is defiantly a Jenny quality.   In her haiku she generally has two references to an image or an aspect of an image that link everything together.   I feel this is what makes her haiku as good as they are. —Travis Meisenheimer May 2004