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by R. L. Seasoning
Unlike Dr. Spectacles, Mister Miner has taken a serious approach to the Haiku form (see “Commentaries on the Haiku of Dr. Spectacles”). Haiku, however, seemed an odd poetic form for Mister Miner to have adopted, given its limitations. For anything meaningful to be written in Haiku, there is no room for wasted words.
You will notice that, like Ezra Pound, H. D., T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens and the other free verse poets, Mister Miner has chosen not to adhere to the traditional principles of English meter. Robert Frost has said, “Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down”, to which I have heard Mister Miner retort that “There is love in things besides tennis”. In Mister Miner’s defense, I have discovered him several times too deeply engaged in a work of Frost even to notice I had arrived at his porch. Joseph Joubert said, “You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring it with you.” Free verse or otherwise, I do not believe Mister Miner’s concern is its packaging so much as the poem’s beauty, meaning and portability. Like any type of traditional verse, Haiku is not Mister Miner’s preferred poetic form, but because of its limitations, it seemed a canvas begging for Simpleism.
On the subject of poetic packaging, there is one concern I would like to put to bed before continuing. The Haiku form of poetry has many interpretations regarding the way in which it is to be written in the English language (or if it is to be written in the English language at all). There are indeed many arguments arising from the translation of the Japanese form into English. Without delving too deeply into the philosophy of word meanings, and without quoting too much Shakespeare’s mentioning of “A rose by any other name…” or Thomas Hobbes saying that “…words…are the money of fools” I will say that Mister Miner has written a series of poems composed of three lines in the sequence of five, then seven, and then five syllables.
As Mister Miner stated himself “I am glad I was sitting down when I read what some people had to say about the rules Haiku—I did not know that all of Japanese culture could be summed up so simply.” He would go on further to comment that “Now if those same persons were to prove my Haiku are not written in an English syllabic sequence of five-seven-five I will have need of more than just sitting down, because they have truly performed the impossible.”
Now, to the task at hand (and I will keep this part brief), Mister Miner’s Haiku excel in many key elements with which traditional Haiku have in the past. No one will argue that a single Haiku is epic in length and as such, this form must produce a grand image in something small. Mister Miner has achieved this task superbly, with his terse encapsulation of nature, beauty, and forgive me once again, love.
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“Autumn’s Agreement” focuses on the elements one would expect to coincide with the dawning of autumn. The mornings and evenings are “crisp and cool” as the leaves which filled trees in summer begin to fall. “Autumn’s Agreement”, as both the title and commencing line, transforms the role of autumn into one that reads almost contractually.
The final line “Summer leaves falling” is a double entendre. The first meaning, as mentioned, is that the leaves of summer fall, while the auxiliary meaning is that the word “leaves” as a verb rather than a noun, denotes that it is summer itself which is leaving and filling its own role of falling behind.
Something I would like to add (which admittedly, may seem a bit of a stretch) is that “falling” can be interpreted here as a verb which denotes the act of becoming autumn. I have heard Mister Miner go on about Heidegger’s language arguments, and I may be misquoting one particular Heidegger passage he likes to use when I say “A thing is a thing insofar as it things”. This is why, personally, I do not believe it is at all a stretch to say that by “Summer leaves falling” Mister Miner is implying that as Summer departs it takes on some of the active attributes of fall. Summer, therefore, has moved from its characteristic practice of summering and has begun the role of falling until autumn has arrived to take over the role until it must do the same favour for winter.
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This Haiku deals with forbidden love. Two lovers must express their sentiments hidden from public. The line “Our minister is silence” can be interpreted as since they cannot be wed due to secrecy, they must therefore be bound by that secrecy itself. “Lonely is our love” is an ironic line, quite approachable to a reader’s empathy. Individually, the two lovers are not alone because they have each other, but their love, knowing only itself, lives on quiet and forlorn.
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This is a very simple Haiku about someone who is waiting for the person he or she loves. This could be a close friend, a family member, or a lover. The question contained in the first line has an undeniably timid quality, as if the answer to the question is expected to be negative. This could connote the fear of unrequited love or the worry that the loved one, due to confinement, injury, or death may not return. Given these circumstances, and despite love being involved, the speaker is rational. He remains grounded; rather than burning the remaining fuel, or letting the fire die, he or she gently allows it to smoulder on indefinitely.
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Mister Miner told me he came up with this poem while kissing a girl beneath a steep hill which once housed a British fortification against the French. While he kissed this girl he thought of how remarkable it was that where they were standing in a loving embrace could have been the same exact spot where a musket ball from the “hill high above” had once picked off an enemy invader. I thought it was quite funny what Mister Miner had to say about this poem “If there hadn’t been so many people around, we would have made an even stronger contrast there.”
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I do not know whether this Haiku or “Autumn’s Agreement” is my favorite. I suppose I like them both for entirely different reasons. Where I enjoy “Autumn’s Agreement” for its seasonal personification, I like this for its comic irony.
We have all seen a frozen or dried flowerbed in which there remain no flowers, but only tickets indicating what they once were. This poem addresses this notion in an argument seemingly saying “not everything you read is true”. I remember once driving with Dr. Spectacles (who, mind you, will only drive cars which have the steering wheel on the right hand side) and he was very upset by the “children at play signs” everywhere. “They had better not leave those signs up after dark,” he said reproachfully, “children should never play after dark.” I believe Dr. Spectacles was pulling my leg, but his statement does go to show that signs can be taken very seriously (semiotics is a field after all).
The “ticket” could also represent a sort of tombstone-like object which serves to commemorate what was once there. The only problem is that since these tickets almost always contain a picture of the flower which should be beside them, the ticket itself serves as a mockery to both the flower and the “dried out soil” because it is the only thing bringing colour to the pot. It is also interesting to note that the chrysanthemum is know as a symbol of death in the western world, and for many European countries, it is only used at funerals.