Comments on: Viral 2.1

By: Merrill Ann Gonzales

Merrill Ann Gonzales — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:54:04 +0000

When I read this haiku I feel a wound. I feel Roberta’s exploration of a silence which she needs to be able to express, thus ending the silence. I feel the innate drive to individuation which in itself makes the wound deeper in the loss. Perhaps I feel too much? Like John, I probably read things from my own experiencial library.

By: Garry Eaton

Garry Eaton — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:31:00 +0000

While not wishing to be too restrictive, I would read this as a poem of mourning. ‘Here’ is the present, perhaps at graveside, and ‘there’ is some indefinite future date of reckoning. Until then, the speaker realizes, she must go it on her own, without mother’s guidance or companionship. The other readings so far proposed seem to be responding largely to a past duration rather than a future one, and that is a reading that seems to me less justified by the poem’s actual wording.

By: Viral 2.3 |

Viral 2.3 | — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 04:37:09 +0000

[...] Viral 2.1 (Metz ➾ Beary) • Viral 2.2 (Beary ➾ Tauchner) [...]

By: Viral 2.2 |

Viral 2.2 | — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:27:26 +0000

[...] Viral 2.1 (Metz ➾ Beary) [...]

By: Paul Pfleuger, Jr.

Paul Pfleuger, Jr. — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:54:34 +0000

What I’ve always liked about this haiku, and the comments so far have confirmed this, is that there are so many windows or doors to enter it. Why, my first reading of it saw the mother going from one room and one door to another, taking that unnamable silence with her. I’ve forgotten who said that “silence” is an overworked word in haiku, but it is compelling in this haiku and without it would fall flat. In my several readings of a haiku as poignant as this, like John, I sometimes like to imagine a haiku within my own experience, but when that doesn’t reverberate, I’ll have people I know playing the part(s). If that doesn’t work, no worries, or course there is the imagination. In another reading of it, I had the mother passing away with an unsettled grudge and sinister clouds looming. So many ways to read this and fine comments thus far. And here’s to all that good back-patting going on in blogtown, Roberta, this poem is well deserved of its accolades.