Dee Evetts
Essay #3 May/June 2021
While this series pertains to English-language haiku from around the world, it might seem strange — negligent even — to ignore the most famous and most translated war-related haiku of all time. This being Bashō’s:
summer grasses
all that remains
of warriors’ dreams
This version is a blending of two translations that I find to be literal and unadorned. This has not always been the case with earlier renderings of the poem, of which there must be hundreds in existence. One horror that unfortunately sticks in my mind: Summer grasses grow/On brave soldier’s splendid dreams/The afterglow comes. I shall refrain from making any further comment on this.
In a recent essay for frogpond, Jeff Robbins remarked: “Some believe that this haiku glorifies war; however, as I see it, the verse highlights the futility of war — the vanity of male achievements in comparison to the prolific fertility of summer in the Far North.” Not surprisingly — and indeed sadly so — the “warriors’ dreams” motif has endured over time, perpetuated by lethal conflicts that have inspired similar reflections and feelings. So far as battlefields are concerned, the American Civil War of course comes to mind, and in Europe the mud and then the poppy fields of Flanders. Below are four poems that I have chosen for the range they present within the broad theme of long-ago battles.
harvest moon soldier’s graves
over an empty battlefield below ground-cover plants
Gettysburg the same questions
nameless stones sparrows!
row upon row taking in the battlefield
yards from where they died in little hops
The first of these is by William Cullen, Jr. I have not come across any other haiku that employs this relatively common first line to such effect. Here it serves to create an aura of elapsed time and of inevitability; the three lines together have the effect of folding in upon one another to envelop past and present. In Eva Limbach’s “soldier’s graves”, the ground-cover may represent a form of denial, which regardless cannot obscure the timeless questions surrounding human conflict and massacre. Dan Eversley reminds us just how domestic the Civil War was, and at the same time how anonymously its casualties often perished. Finally, Michael McClintock’s “sparrows!” has something of a Japanese aesthetic, without being in any way derivative. It manages to convey lightness and at the same time gravity, a combination rarely seen in English-language haiku.
I want to shift our focus here to haiku that reflect or evoke the immediate experience of a conflict zone. One such poem that immediately comes to mind — yet eludes me nonetheless — portrays a soldier pinned down by sniper fire, not daring to move a finger. It closes with the line: “let the warm urine flow”, as best I can recollect. If anyone reading this should recognize the poem and know the full and correct version, I would be glad to hear from them.
The following two haiku are by Rick Black and Joe McKeon respectively:
sergeant’s orders border mountains
soldiers cock their rifles the morning sun glints
at the azure sky off spent shells
In Black’s poem there is an almost painful opposition (or is it tension?) between the clarity of the sky and the rattle of weapons being readied to fire. McKeon’s “border mountains” is more diffuse. It has the feel of a reconnaissance patrol, but we do not know this. The poet leaves it open whether this is a combat situation, or the aftermath of war — or just a temporary ceasefire. This range of possible interpretations works in the poem’s favor, and is carried partly by the vividness of its central image.
There are inevitably questions that may be thrown up for some readers. Are these poems based on direct experience, or are they works of informed imagination? And does it matter one way or the other? My own view is that if the poet has been able to empathize to this extent, and as a result to craft a powerful expression, then the debate over “authenticity” becomes redundant. It belongs in the same realm as wrangling over whether a man is able write in the voice of a woman, and vice versa.
Besides such depictions , there are the myriad images caught on camera, of which in our time we receive a great many — mostly via newspapers and television, and of course online. One such has been singled out by Annie Bachini to striking effect, in the first of the two haiku below:
a smiling soldier through the rifle’s barrel
caught at war—flashes his knife a whistle of wind
for the camera —April dusk
Bachini’s haiku raises the troublesome question of how much in war is motivated by testosterone (to put it plainly) combined with a youthful disdain for the likelihood of dying. Leaving aside such driving forces as blind nationalism and religious fervor, the glamour factor cannot be denied. And this does not bode well for our hopes of fundamental change. The second poem above is by Tony Pupello, and it is the opening verse of seven that make up a piece titled “Vietnam Memorial Sequence”. In this haiku a listener is implied though not specified, and I find this gives it a haunting quality. It may be that the battle is over, and no-one is left to hear the mournful sound. His sequence then progresses through home-coming parades and war fatigue (suggesting that for some the worst may be yet to come) and closes with this:
towering over
the Vietnam Memorial:
corporate towers
This is the punch to the gut. Here is a vivid juxtaposition that can be interpreted in only one way: financial interests (the ‘military-industrial complex’, if you like) drive or at least facilitate a great deal of that which the memorial — dwarfed and quite likely in shadow — bids us remember. This can be our cue to look at some haiku relating to the long-term effects on ex-combatants, along with collateral damage to their families, as well as to the many civilian populations caught up in conflicts which they have done nothing to cause.
border fence— his dog asleep
fig roots on the empty side
still connect our lands third deployment
Holocaust museum silent on the war
a child’s shoe my father points out
behind glass the winter stars
The fig tree seems to locate Lucky Triana’s poem in the Middle East or Far East, and there is the suggestion that the border is not where it used to be, or at least that it was not closed and fortified as now. Caroline Coit Daney with “his dog asleep” speaks for the countless separations brought about by America’s military entanglements over the years, while in the third poem Mark Gilbert uses a perhaps familiar image (there are similar artifacts on display in the Hiroshima Museum) and by quietly re-presenting this commands our full attention. The phrase “behind glass” has an impact that goes beyond the visual, in a way that I cannot quite articulate. Finally Stephen Kusch conveys an experience that may relate to any of the above conflicts. The age of the poet-narrator here is unspecified, which makes it all the easier for readers to empathize with the situation.
In my next essay we shall be pursuing these themes further, and I invite readers to send any relevant haiku that they consider worth sharing. This could be your own work, though I would like to cast the net wider than that. (Up to a maximum of five poems, please.) Clearly I have been able to locate only a small fraction of the stronger haiku relating to war. Many more good examples must be out there.
To conclude for today, here is a wistful and enigmatic poem by Miriam Sagan. I would be glad to hear readers’ ideas about this poem also:
I remember
your braid—
girl gone to soldier
[You can send any thoughts/feedback on this essay to the Editor, who will ensure they are passed
on to Dee: editor@tsuridōrō.org]
