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Musical Haiku of Elizabeth Searle Lamb
Elizabeth Searle Lamb was born in Topeka, Kansas on January 22, 1917. She graduated from the University of Kansas with majors in Music and Harp. She played with the Kansas City Philharmonic as 2nd harpist from 1940-1941. She married Bruce Lamb in December of 1941 and they lived in Trinidad, Spain for two years as Bruce worked as a tropical forester, before being relocated to the Amazon. Because Lamb was only in the United States for brief periods of time throughout the next few years, she did not have a chance to pursue her music career. Therefore, she began to write and publish different types of materials: musical, juvenile literature, travel and eventually this led to poetry.
In 1961, Lamb and her husband moved to New York. This is where she was first introduced to the art of haiku. She began to study, read, and write about this form of poetry. She became a charter member of the Haiku Society of America (HSA) in 1968. In 1971, ten years after she learned the art of haiku, she became the president of the HSA. Since this time, she has had her work published in many haiku magazines and newspapers. She has participated in many festivals including the First International Haiku Festival in Philadelphia and at the Glassboro Festival and she has also held other various offices within the Haiku Society of America. Lamb has also been the editor for the HSA’s quarterly publication, which is entitled Frogpond.
Elizabeth Searle Lamb passed away February 16, 2005 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The inspiration Elizabeth Searle Lamb receives in writing her haiku stems from her love of music and especially from her love of playing the harp. Because she did not have the chance to pursue a music career, I believe she was able to release her passions and her personal journeys through her haiku. This is evidenced in her collection of haiku and new haiku in Across the Windharp [ATW] (La Alamdeda Press 1999). For example the haiku
after last night’s frost
a colder music
from the wind chimes
Lamb ATW, pg 61
-and-
the broken harp string
curving
into sunlight
Lamb ATW, pg 52
are prime examples of her haiku written with her inspirations of music and the harp showing through. There is no denying that when you read Elizabeth Searle Lamb’s haiku that music will somehow find its way in. Another haiku that has a musical influence also has a follow-up haiku to it that continues the story.
flute arpeggios tangling in apricot blossoms
Lamb ATW, pg 54
-and-
it’s still there
echo of flute notes tangled
in apricot blossoms
Lamb ATW, pg 62
It was really a pleasant surprise to read that one-line haiku because it is such a beautiful image. The delicateness of a flute and the sound it produces coincides very nicely with how delicate the blossoms of an apricot tree are. I really love how she made a follow-up haiku to it that appeared eight pages later about how she can still hear the echoes of the flute notes. This pair of haiku became a favorite of mine because the beautiful story that the first one portrayed was continued into another just as beautiful haiku.
Along those same lines, her haiku are also embedded with an element of sound, even if it isn’t necessarily related directly to music. I noticed that her haiku encompassed the sound element both literally and implied. For example,
church bells at seven
the first rays of sun
on blue morning glories
Lamb ATW, pg 104
in this haiku the reader can hear the church bells ringing which would be an example of literally hearing the bells. Though this example looks like the obvious choice for a haiku with a sound element, I think this haiku is a good example because it also reveals the season as well with very vivid imagery of the sun and the flowers. The fact that it is so simple, yet portrays so many senses, is why I picked it as an example. An example of her haiku containing an implied sound element is:
she waits
for the bee in her hair
to disengage
Lamb ATW, pg 105
Though it doesn’t come out and say anything about the incessant buzzing of the bee, it is automatically felt because the bee is so close to her head and ears. The sound of the bee is the only way she would have known it was in her hair in the first place, so it wasn’t necessary to write it. This haiku is an excellent example of a haiku containing the sound element that doesn’t need to be stated because it is naturally implied.
Elizabeth Searle Lamb’s haiku are written in the moment. She writes about moments that are happening now in life. She is able to capture the moment as if it has just surfaced and that she is just remembering it again. I think she writes her haiku so that her readers can live the moment’s right alongside her. She doesn’t just want to present the haiku in a form that people would enjoy then on their own, she wants the reader to bet their with her as she writes about these ordinary moments in life.
The following haiku I have picked out as my favorites that Elizabeth Searle Lamb has written. Following each example is my response to them.
tiny winged creature
no less beautiful
without a name
I really like this haiku firstly because it is really simplistic. Lamb leaves it open to the reader’s imagination by only saying 'tiny winged creature' and not specifically saying butterfly or dragonfly, etc. For any person reading the first line, so many different creatures could come to mind. I also like this haiku because the tiny winged creature (whatever it may be) is just as beautiful as if it had a name. I think it shows nicely that a name doesn’t mean everything and that this creature should be held in the same esteem regardless of it having a name or not.
summer sky
and the slow drifting
of one cloud
Lamb ATW, pg 84
My mother liked this haiku by Elizabeth Searle Lamb because she said that it reminded her of a lazy day in the pool, lying on her back on a raft trying to get some sun before the pool is invaded by kids. She said that she could picture herself home alone and being so relaxed that she just lays there watching the one cloud go by. Then she added that it sounds like a good plan for this summer. I, like my mother, also liked this haiku because of the feeling of peacefulness that I think it evokes. I think it captures the very essence of a lazy summer day when all you want to do is lay around letting the sun beat down on you.
precisely
beneath the bedroom window
a cricket all night
Lamb ATW, pg 72
I picked out this haiku mainly because it didn’t evoke any feelings that a lot of haiku possess—feelings like love or family, or any feeling that could make a person uncomfortable if they didn’t know what it was like. I like this one because it was something I could really picture and I could also sense the frustration that would come along with the chirping of a cricket. I also liked it because it reminded me of a night on a camping trip I took last summer with my boyfriend and a bunch of friends where there were so many bugs and animals making noises outside our tent that we didn’t sleep a wink. I can just feel the sense of annoyance embedded in this haiku which I why I picked it out as a favorite.
I noticed a recurring theme throughout a lot of Lamb’s haiku and that is she writes a lot about the chirping of crickets in a soundless environment. Along with the example above, she has also written
all night
singing in the bathroom
autumn cricket
Lamb ATW, pg 61
crickets
in the deep grass
sounding off
Lamb ATW, pg 71
a new hearing aid:
adjusting it, she tunes in
on crickets
Lamb ATW, pg 60
the crickets
just keep on
cricketing
Most of the haiku take on a humorous appeal after feeling the slight annoyance embedded in each of them. That humor is what really drew me in to them.
the tourist
his tripod on the very knife-edge
of the cliff
Lamb ATW, pg 80
I showed this haiku to my mom and my four brothers and wanted to see if their reaction to the haiku was similar to my own. I think that all of my family members chuckled after reading this one and they all pointed to one person who they thought it reminded them of: my dad. My dad takes his camera with him EVERYWHERE, saying that these are the memories he always wants to have. For the rest of the family, though, it gets really irritating when he always has his camera in your face. My oldest brother said, “For a man that has a masters degree, a jurist doctorate, and two specialized law degrees, he does some pretty stupid things, and this would be one of them.” We all thought that this would be something unintelligent he would do just so that he could capture the beauty of wherever we were on film. It made me laugh to think that a single haiku could bring out the same feelings and emotions for different people.
The following two examples are matching pair’s comparisons of Lamb’s haiku to other authors. The first haiku is compared to one written by Kimiko Itami taken from A Hidden Pond: Anthology of Modern Haiku [AHP].
On New Year’s Day
a lemon quietly creating
my private myth
Itami AHP, pg 6
New Year’s Day
a tiny glass angel
catches a sunbeam
Lamb ATW, pg 24
I chose to compare these two haiku for reasons more than both using the phrase New Year’s Day. I like how both use an ordinary object to capture a special moment. For example, the lemon is creating a myth, a task that one normally does not associate with a lemon. In the second haiku a glass angel catches a sunbeam on New Year’s Day—a day in which you wouldn’t normally think the sun would be out. I liked how each haiku used a common day to capture a unique moment.
This next example compares Lamb’s view on a cherry tree compared to Masajo Suzuki’s haiku, taking into consideration the high regard the Japanese hold to the cherry blossom tree.
the old white cherry
back by the shed where no one goes
blooming like mad
ATW Searle Lamb, pg 67
fruit of my labor:
this cherry blossom viewing
kimono
LH Suzuki, pg 84
I chose to compare these two haiku mainly for the differences that I see in them. The first haiku reproduces the image of a beautiful, old cherry tree that never gets any viewings because of its placement in the yard. It was planted in the back of the yard and no one ever sees it unless they intentionally make the effort. As beautiful as the tree is, it never gets the full amount of appreciation that it truly deserves. The second haiku also represents a beautiful cherry tree full of blooms, but in this case, it becomes the star of the show, so to speak. This woman has her new kimono on, purchased specially for the cherry blossom viewing. The cherry tree’s beauty is witnessed by all, receiving all the admiration it warrants, unlike the cherry tree from the first haiku. Works Cited
Katô, Kôko, Editor. A Hidden Pond: Anthology of Modern Haiku, 2nd edition. Translated by Kôko Katô and David Burleigh. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 2003.
Lamb, Elizabeth Searle. Across the Windharp: Collected and New Haiku. Albuquerque, NM: La Alameda Press, 1999. Signed.
Lamb, Elizabeth Searle. Casting Into a Cloud. Fanwood, NJ: From Here Press, 1985. Signed.
Lamb, Elizabeth Searle. In This Blaze of Sun. Paterson, NJ: From Here Press, 1975. Signed.
Lamb, Elizabeth & Bruce Lamb. Picasso's "Bust of Sylvette". Topeka, KS: 1977. Signed.
Lamb, Elizabeth Searle. 39 Blossoms. Battleground, IN: High/Coo Press, 1982. Mini-chapbook 17.
Suzuki, Masajo. Translated by Emiko Miyashita and Lee Gurga. Love Haiku: Masajo Suzuki's Lifetime of Love. Decatur, IL: Brooks Books, 2000. |
