HCSHR 2:8: James Roderick Burns, The Worksongs of the Worms
James Roderick
Burns The Worksongs of the Worms, Allahabad, India: Cyberwit.net, 2018. ISBN
978-93-88125-02-4. 94 pages. 13$US www.cyberwit.net/publications/1087
Review
by Maxianne Berger
This collection of 88
haiku by James Roderick Burns is informed by a haiku by Issa, in epigraph, from
which the title:
The old
dog listens/ intently, as if to/ the worksongs of the worms
There is a feeling
of honesty that I gather from these poems, their Nature being one that is lived
in rather than visited.
Slow and
steady —
passed on the road
by a plump spring moon
passed on the road
by a plump spring moon
I’m especially
drawn to those where the denizens are addressed directly, thus giving an
opening to the personal.
Managed
snowdrop,
how I admire your sprouting
outside the lines
how I admire your sprouting
outside the lines
Ardent
moth,
what do you know
that I don’t?
what do you know
that I don’t?
Nature is
definitely invaded by our technological world.
Call and
response —
songbird cocks its head, answers
the mislaid phone
songbird cocks its head, answers
the mislaid phone
Some poets would
not use personification or metaphor in a haiku, yet where Burns does, it works
quite nicely, as in this haiku which has no kire,
no real juxtaposition.
Wild
wind
plunges its hands
in the saplings’ hair
plunges its hands
in the saplings’ hair
Where the more traditional
structure is used, the effect is startling.
Funnel
of sparrows
in a pale dawn —
all my mistakes
in a pale dawn —
all my mistakes
Burns’ collection
is an interesting one. And with a single haiku on each page, there is ample white
space within which the reader can expand the scene, and perhaps, in turn, gather
inspiration “outside the lines[.]”