Tony Pupello
Essay #24 Nov/Dec 2024
A quality that haiku poets often strive for is resonance. Many poets in the haiku community are fond of saying “it resonates with me” to describe a haiku they particularly enjoy or feel is particularly strong. Striking a chord in the reader may play out in multiple ways — evoking a feeling; conjuring a memory; assisting the reader to a deeper understanding of a given situation or event — indeed this last is akin to evoking that elusive “aha!” moment.
Resonance with a reader may be overt although I think in many cases it is subtle. A reader cannot always say what that resonance they feel is or, more importantly, why they are feeling it — nor, for our purposes — how it has been achieved. However it is accomplished, I believe it is this, what I would call “outer layer” of resonance – striking a chord in the reader — that is most important and the resonance most of us strive for. “The reader completes the haiku”. I think most would agree that without this connection to the reader, the poem fails or is lost.
One of the ways a poet achieves resonance with the reader is through a secondary layer — an inner layer — in which the poem resonates within itself. This “internal resonance” offers no major surprise as we normally think of a haiku having two distinct juxtaposed parts rendering insight into a deeper meaning or reading of the poem. Paul Miller offers us a very accessible description of the two parts found in haiku in his 2015 essay “Haiku Toolbox: Dangling Participles (or Happy Participle Accidents)”: “Because haiku normally consist of two parts, often in a contrasting or comparative relationship, the average reader will know to treat the two separate parts as two independent wholes.” [MODERN HAIKU 46:2 pgs. 40-44]. Of course Miller was heading in a different direction in his essay. Germane to the topic at hand is the acceptance that — generally speaking — there are “two parts” of a haiku leading to an internal resonance or, in some cases, assonance.
The following haiku by Laurie D. Morrisey offers a clear example of extremely effective internal resonance.
no struggle
in these snowflakes …
night vigil
In this piece we witness a lack of struggle in the falling snowflakes — a highly potent and acceptable personification in this instance. Who among us would contest that snowfall calms and soothes. Indeed how many non-haiku poems allude to snowfall as being a blanket, providing comfort and rest. This non-struggle is then reflected in the poet’s non-struggle as well. The poet is attending a vigil — someone, most probably a loved one — is on death’s precipice. As the loved one’s “life struggle” is past, so too the poet’s struggle. The poet has made peace with the inevitable.
I’d like to take the discussion of internal resonance a step further. I submit there are poems that exhibit an internal resonance in not one instance but in at least two instances — resulting in a “double” internal resonance if you will. I believe when this double internal resonance exists, the juxtapositions may indeed be subtle and a reader may not be fully aware of them. I offer the following poems to illustrate, by Madelaine Caritas Longman, Mona Bedi and John Stevenson respectively.
steady rain falling leaf —
passing a prayer my grief too
bead through bead has no sound
luxury car —
the sparrow’s quiet
thump
In Longman’s piece there is a clear relationship between the rain and prayer. Rain is often indicative of sadness or sorrow. Most of us pray, those that do, when we are in need of solace or in need of help. Whether inside or out — indeed the poet might literally be at a gravesite in the rain — there is another relationship at play as well. That between the “steadiness” of the rain and the notion of “bead through bead”. There is a cadence followed when praying with prayer beads. Usually a prayer or a series of prayers is repeated over and over, resulting in a rhythmic chanting. Clearly this is evidenced in the poet’s use of the very interesting line “passing a prayer”. In this poem we have the steady cadence of the prayers echoed in the steady cadence of the rain.
In Bedi’s piece the surface resonance, at least for me, is found in the very quiet falling of a leaf to the ground and the locking away of one’s emotions, in this case the emotion of grief. Quite a few of us are very private creatures, certainly when it comes to expressing or sharing heartfelt emotions. The poet’s reluctance to share a palpable grief is echoed in the leaf’s falling without a sound. There is something else that captures my attention, though. What is the cause of the poet’s grief? Here the secondary resonance can be found. The leaf has “fallen” as has, perhaps, someone near and dear to the poet. Although the term “falling leaf” is a commonly used term, I have to think it a deliberate choice here.
In Stevenson’s piece, we are drawn to the resonance — unfortunate and distasteful as it is — of the sparrow’s “quiet” thump as it is hit by and/or bounces off a car. We not only hear this thump, as quiet as it may be, we feel it as well. It may cause us to skip a heartbeat. However there is a more subtle occurrence here that I believe doubles the effect on the reader. The sparrow is struck by a car and it “thumps” — but let’s look closer at the car and the sparrow themselves. This is not simply a car, this is a luxury car. Why a luxury car? And this is not an owl or a crow that has been struck. This is a sparrow — a very small, tiny creature devoid of power. This deft juxtaposition between a luxury car and a sparrow resonates with us as the big and powerful versus the small and weak.
Finally, I submit there are poems that resonate internally in subtle ways and may even resonate in more than two instances. Consider the multiple resonances in the following piece by Wally Swist.
shadow after shadow
the flock of migrating geese
passing through us
We are buffeted by shadow after shadow as a flock of migrating passing over us cause intermittent blockages of the sun. The poet takes the play between light and darkness deeper — not only does it pass over us, but it is felt more keenly through us. Is this all there is however? What else is there resonating in the background as it were? A flock of migrating geese is loud and boisterous to say the least. Not only are we buffeted by waves of lightness and darkness as the geese pass over us, but the loud, noisy sounds of the geese — which the poet does not mention overtly at all — are also passing over us and, in a very literal sense, through us. The resulting cascade of sights and sounds leaves us literally moved.
In the following piece by Emily Romano we begin with the juxtaposition of moonlight and winter stillness. Although moonlight and stillness has often been juxtaposed we must pause here and note that Emily Romano was a pioneer in English-language haiku. As such, this was probably not cliched or as over-used as it might be considered to be now. However, I submit there is much more here that keeps this from being an over-used juxtaposition.
moonlight
on typewriter keys;
winter stillness
Certainly moonlight resonates with the stillness of a winter’s night. This is apparent and it immediately stills (and possibly fills) us. But consider now the typewriter keys. What the heck do they have to do with this moment and why do we know — at least those of us who lived and worked on typewriters! — that they so simply fit in here and are striking (no pun intended) even more chords within us? Typewriter keys were often noisy and clackety. Moonlight is resting on typewriter keys that themselves are at rest — they are still because no one is typing. Not only is there a resonance between the moonlight and the winter night — there is a resonance between the moonlight and the keys at rest. This is the more subtle resonance of the piece.
I will conclude this essay with the multiple resonances found in Roberta Beary’s piece below — at least one of which may be psychological in nature.
father’s day
teeth missing
from the pocket comb
To begin with, perhaps this is a Father’s Day celebrated by an adult poet and her aged father. There is a resonance between the aged father and his old, possibly favorite, certainly much-used pocket comb, which is now missing some teeth. In a light, possibly even humorous reading, the poet identifies her aged father with the aged, toothless comb. Simple enough. Good enough.
This being a Beary poem, however, I can’t help but think there is more going on here. In a darker reading, perhaps the poet’s father is not aged but deceased? Perhaps a jacket is kept in the back corner of a closet as a keepsake. This being Father’s Day, the poet takes down, “visits” if you will, the jacket. Of course, this being a favorite piece of clothing, the poet comes upon dad’s ever-present pocket comb, ever a soft reminder of the poet’s father. As the old comb is missing teeth, so too the poet is missing her father. This elegiac reading sits well with me.
What of the psychological resonance that might be found in this piece? It is Father’s Day. The poet’s father is still alive. She may or may not be physically sharing the day with him but she is not celebrating father’s day per se. What if the relationship between father and daughter had been a rough one? What if the father had been domineering or abusive in a psychological or physical way? That damn pocket comb, again ever-present, is now old and frail and missing teeth. And perhaps there is just a bit of gladness on the part of the poet as regards just deserts. But she cannot bring herself to be all that glad, can she?
Damn that pocket comb.
