Dee Evetts
Essay #19 Jan/Feb 2024
Once I had chosen the above as my theme for this issue of tsuri-dōrō, I quickly realized that I was uncertain of what I myself mean by “awe” in this context. All I really have to go on is the fact that in a previous essay published in this journal, titled “Emotion in Haiku” (which I now see appeared in the inaugural issue of Jan/Feb 2021) I ended that piece as follows: “I shall close this essay with the following two haiku, that in their different ways convey — along with whatever else — an emotion that we have as yet not touched upon: awe. I look forward to discussing these two poems in some future context.” Below that were these haiku, written by Raymond Roseliep and Penny Harter respectively:
he removes his glove distant thunder
to point out overhead a satellite
Orion moves in the dark
Three years seems quite long enough to stretch the commitment implied in that final sentence, and it seems best that I plunge straight in here without further ado. I shall backtrack later to consider the larger umbrella under which these two poems may be included.
There is no great challenge here in identifying what kind of awe is being expressed. Both poets invite us to contemplate the night sky, and in Roseliep’s poem we are offered the image of a glove being removed in order (it is implied) to facilitate the pointing out of a constellation. It is what that action implies that gets us thinking. Is it merely a matter of the bare hand being more capable of effectively pointing? True that may be, but I do not believe that Roseliep intended to express merely that. There is something more elusive and mystical (a term that I use with great caution) going on here, as I see it. For me it lies in the realm of wonder, as well as something akin to respect. (There is very little difference between the statements, “I am in awe of him”, and “I hold him in great respect”.)
Harter’s poem is more earthbound, we can fairly say — not least in that a satellite is truly a worldly creation, albeit of great complexity and potential. While I do experience a sense of wonder — and indeed of awe — each time that I return to this haiku, at the same time I find in it a quality that could almost be described as ominous. If I attempt to analyze this, it becomes clear that the “distant thunder” in this poem is disturbing to me because of what it portends: the age of surveillance, and instant communication, and navigation aids for the masses — miraculous perhaps but with a hidden downside. To this list we can add new methods of warfare: cyber hacking, blackmail, sabotage, precision bombing. I speculate that when Harter wrote the poem all this was in the future; yet one would not need to be a scientist to have a premonition of what was lying just a few years ahead. On the contrary, that might take a poet. We should not forget that in many circumstances awe is closely allied with fear (and indeed those two words are not infrequently linked).
The two haiku we have been looking at are examples (and outstanding ones) of what we could describe as a universal human trait, and one deeply embedded, for sure: for mankind must always have been awe-struck by celestial events and phenomena. The Northern Lights naturally come to mind, as well as eclipses, and — while far more rare — the appearance of comets. And much closer to earth we have the sky, with its panoply of ever-changing cloud effects. In summer it may be a mountain of cumulus, climbing ever higher — seeming almost to boil — gaining a thousand feet in a matter of minutes. Or on a calm day the high-level cirrus, torn into a series of plumes by strong winds. It occurs to me only at this moment that there may be something quintessentially primal about staring upward. This could no doubt make for an interesting digression, but I shall be disciplined and refrain from pursuing it here. Coming down to earth in more senses than one, we could instance a volcanic eruption, or a great river bursting its banks. Such spectacles certainly have the potential to be awe-inspiring. But how about a placid river, with the moon fading as day breaks, and an occasional flurry of wind? Awe in this case would not obviously come to mind as a response. Serenity, detachment — even acceptance — come more readily to mind. But we may well reconsider this after reading John Wills’ timeless haiku below:
the moon at dawn
lily-pads blow white
in a sudden breeze
I am not sure if awe is quite the word for what I feel every time I read this poem (which is often). Certainly there is in it a sense of mystery for me, and equally of the numinous. I almost feel a shiver — but of what? Recognition, I suppose. Recognition of what, though? I make no claim to any special insight or revelation, or any fantasy of that kind. I am more inclined to believe that I’m just wired that way, to use an unscientific turn of phrase. This haiku gets to me in some manner that I cannot fathom.
We are now approaching territory where opinion is even more subjective and debatable than usual when attempting to appraise and interpret any particular haiku. I understand that some readers may cavil about my responses to the following poems — and my response to that would be along the lines: feel free to take them or leave them. These are simply offerings.
In this first group of four haiku below I feel that we are not far removed in spirit from John Wills’ lily pad haiku. The authors here are Ikuyo Yoshimura, Matthew Louvière, eric l houck jr, and Patrick Kelly.
spring thunder — blue hydrangeas
a potter’s fingers stop down the mountain
at the wheel suddenly the sea
light snowfall separating fog
the tick of an engine from fog
cooling strand of barbed wire
In the first of these, I find the brief arrest of movement to be eloquent both of the craftsman’s focus, as well as his or her reaction to the sound of a possibly approaching storm. (Perhaps there are materials to be put under cover, if serious rain is on the way.) But awe? I can only say that there is something about this scene — so economically sketched — that ties in with things hidden and eternal. I would say much the same of the other poems in this group. The blue hydrangeas, with the sudden revelation of the ocean, achieve a breezy display of the universal. While the ticking engine is very much earthbound, it demonstrates that even the mechanical can connect with the infinite. If that sounds like a stretch, consider how that ticking is caused by something most of us never even think about. For it is at the level of molecules, and how they behave in different materials and at certain temperatures. A little awe would in fact not come amiss here. The fourth poem is also intriguing in its own way. The poet employs a touch of irony — as I hear it — while expressing the ambivalent function of barbed wire by means of the surreal image presented.
To end for today (though not yet to close this subject, which will be continued in the spring) here are poems by Bruce Ross, Philip Rowland, Bruce Detrick, and Alyson Pou.
spring morning the table
the shadow of a building without the table cloth
on a building spring evening
empty house sunlight shines red
its great windows through my father’s thumb
looking out to sea on the steering wheel
The first two haiku here have a quietness that might seem far removed from anything as profound as awe. But as the Trojans convincingly demonstrated, there are other ways of entering a city than by battering down the front gate. In a quietly subversive way both poems make this reader, at least, experience a sense of being allowed to peek around a curtain into some interior world. Meanwhile Detrick’s “empty house” I have always found hauntingly timeless, seemingly laden with untold history. And in the final poem Alyson Pou has achieved a tour de force, involving mortality, issues of control (perhaps dominance also), a deep affection if not love, and the unceasing tide of generations.
