young leaf #2

Philip, I have taken it that some people were not sure that they liked the *concept* behind the term “fourth line” (whatever it might be called), so that’s why I said I’m not concerned about whether anyone likes the term or not. Whatever it’s called, you generally can’t escape the effect (indeed, the benefit) of the name of the poet associated with each poem.

Also, I agree that there’s a difference, as a result of the name connected with a poem, between a) our expectations and b) any additional meaning we can gain from a poem because of what we know about the poet. The expectations can be good and bad, and a skilled poet could even play with those expectations by deliberately doing something out of character. Expectations are the effect of the name before we read the poem, and the additional meaning we get from the name comes after we read the poem, and both may have their pros and cons (the cons mostly, I think, being in producing inappropriate or unhelpful expectations).

Philip, you say you’ve mostly been questioning the idea that “we can gain more out of a haiku when we associate it with a name.” Perhaps that’s not true for you, but it certainly is for me. And of course it varies with each poem. Let’s try a “dip test” — to randomly dip into a poem. I just opened http://www.hsa-haiku.org/hendersonawards/henderson.htm and scrolled down randomly and landed on this poem by Randy Brooks (Henderson first place winner for 1998):

funeral procession . . .
snowflakes blowing
into the headlights

We can all picture this how we will, but how Randy’s name affects me, and affects this poem for me, is that I know Randy lives in small town in central Illinois. Not all haiku are autobiographical, nor do they need to be, so I interpret this poem both with what I know about Randy and his environs AND with the possibility that it’s set somewhere else. Central Illinois is a relatively flat prairie sort of landscape, so the scene, for me, is a flat and rural. If you’ve ever driven across the prairie in winter, as I have many times, you will know how the snow blows endlessly across the fields, and how the uninterrupted wind can be relentless. The snow sometimes piles up at roads and intersections because little else stops the blowing snow. There are more trees in Illinois than, say, Nebraska or Saskatchewan, but still, it’s pretty flat. Just that image alone of the blowing snow can be very lonely and even foreboding, so the feeling is deeper for me by associating it with a prairie landscape (if it were by an ocean, as a contrast, the feeling would be different for me). Is that in the poem? Well, not directly in the poem itself, no! But it is part of the *context* of the poem, at least for me, because Randy himself is part of the poem’s context. That, to me, is one simple way that the name influences the poem — and I think the poem is even better because of it.

Now imagine if the name under the poem were Vladimir Shostokov (I’m making this up). Even if we didn’t know where Vlad lived, we might picture Siberia — an even colder and more foreboding place (or so I would guess — it certainly has that reputation). And imagine the great distances people might have to travel to come to a funeral. And now imagine that the name was Oksana Shostokov. Oksana is a female name, and imagine the affect of that detail on the poem — but also imagine if you didn’t know it was female. In this particular poem, I don’t think gender makes much difference, but I think you could imagine a poem where gender made a difference. And what if Vlad or Oksana (or Randy) actually lived in Malta or New Jersey or Newfoundland or Uganda? Wouldn’t that affect your reading of the poem, at least slightly? I really think it does. And think too of the author’s age. What if we know the poet is just 16? Or 96? Or whatever Randy’s actual age is? Those details have a subtle potential affect on the poem. I’m happy to embrace these effects.

How important is this? Well, it’s secondary to the poem itself, of course. The effect will vary depending on the poem, the poet, and the reader, but my main point is that I believe the effect is, for the most part, inescapable, even if it’s subtle. And again, I wouldn’t want to escape the effect at all, but embrace it — or at least to be conscious of the effect.

And to return to my original poem about ants and the Fourth of July, some people might know that although I live in the United States, I’m a British and Canadian citizen, and what effect does that have on a poem about the Fourth of July? And even if all someone knew about me was that I lived in the United States, that would create a different effect than if I lived in Sri Lanka or Uruguay or Easter Island, wouldn’t it?

Michael

P.S. I don’t know about you but I’ve found the following happen to me sometimes: I’m reading a haiku journal, and my eyes read over a particular poem, and then, when I read the poet’s name, I stop to think — oh, so-and-so wrote that?!? (And this reaction could be because the poem is really good and I might not have liked much by that poet before, or perhaps the opposite, or perhaps it’s simply different from what I expect, in terms of subject matter or tone — for example a few poets write fairly strictly about nature, so a poem with a heavy human focus would probably make me notice the poem a bit more than usual, at least for that particular poet.) Or I might have been reading in a slightly catatonic state (you know how that happens sometimes), but the name, especially if it’s by a favourite writer, will jog me awake and I’ll reread the poem, a little more carefully the second time. Those are both cases where the name affects the reading, in ways that are different from affecting the meaning of the poem itself (which may also happen).

Yes, Lorin, I’ve said before that one function of the “fourth line” is that the name under a poem functions as a sort of “brand.” If we see a Ban’ya Natsuishi poem, we’re likely to expect something different than, say, a poem by Peggy Willis Lyles. In fact, if the styles were different from what we expected for these poets, we’d probably sit up and take special notice. In such a case, the “brand” expectation can be effectively challenged — or fulfilled — and either way can be good. Now, it’s still poetry, and all this talk of branding might be a turn-off to some people who associate it with commercialism, but that isn’t the point of referring to the “fourth line” as a sort of brand. The point, I think, is that our personal associates or knowledge of the poet (to whatever degree that might be the case) changes our expectations of a poem (in nearly always good ways). If I know you live in Australia, I’ll approach your poems with that geographical perspective, as best as I can manage. The only downside of this effect is that perhaps we might more readily publish a so-so haiku by someone who’s a “celebrity poet” — because the “big name” gives a journal some sort of perceived prestige. But even though that may be a bad thing, it underscores the effect of the “fourth line.”

Michael

“True, many poems speak for themselves, but some pieces are nearly indecipherable apart from a larger context and familiarity with the poet’s vision, approach, vocabulary.” Chris

This is so in relation to some of the ‘gendai’ pieces, at least, I think. It rather throws the idea of a haiku as a poem which must hold up in and of itself, ‘stand alone’ as it’s commonly referred to, up for scrutiny, doesn’t it?

I hesitate to bring it up, but it’s related: the ‘fourth line’ also can act as a kind of ‘branding’ of a couple of words used together. Consider Ban’ya Natsuishi’s ‘flying pope’ series or Michael Dylan Welch’s, ‘after’ Natsuishi’s, ‘neon budda’ series.

I doubt that anyone could use ‘flying pope’ or a ‘neon buddha’ in a ku and have it published without being considered a ‘claim-jumper’.

But a trend has begun, and other Americans are beginning to claim a word or two in this way. I can’t & won’t give examples, since ‘Notes From the Gean’ doesn’t publish sequences or series as such.

This trend seems to mark a different approach than that of the ‘commonwealth’ of kigo , season words or keywords: the establishment of keywords as property which the reader grows to automatically associate with a particular ‘fourth line’, and in doing so act as a ‘fourth line’ in themselves.

And, thinking about it some more, an argument can be made for knowing something about the author when reading a haiku.
I give you a personal example:

Spring-
mother has become
a child again

If the reader knows that the author is nearing 60 year’s old, then the poem takes on another meaning than it would without that knowledge. We all become “young” again in spring; but the aged mother of this poem shares a different fate: there is a pathos in it, a reference to senility-that comes with knowing the author’s age.
So, having thought about it more deeply, I think there is justification for considering who the author of a haiku is and knowledge of that person could influence the reading of the poem.

And Beowulf, dear Beowulf, how could I forget you?