HCSHR 5:16 - Interchange by Clausen & Dudley, Outsiders by Nika & Morcom.

 

Interchange. Introduction & photographs by Tom Clausen, haiku & prose commentaries by Michael Dudley. Self-published, 2022. 9798831268720. 88 pp. $16, amazon.ca.
Outsiders; Another Slow Night. Haiku by Nika, commentaries by Joanne Morcom. Calgary: Duck Island Press, 2022. 978-0-9949068-2-3. 56 pp. Available for order from the author at jforce@telus.net. $10 plus postage.

review by Maxianne Berger

Michael Dudley’s poems in Interchange and Nika’s poems in Outsiders are very different in tone and subject matter, however I’ve chosen to look at these together because in the two collections there are commentaries about the haiku which make both books valuable reading for other poets, each in its own way.

Nika’s (Jim Force’s) haiku look gently on those he observes on the street—the homeless, the hobos and the hookers. No, these are not “about” “Nature” per se, however the presence of kigo establishes the when within the cycles of time.

spring thaw
a homeless man wraps his feet
in plastic bags                                                                                               (p. 20)

torrential rains
the panhandler’s cup
a wishing well                                                                                               (p. 38)

street urchins
chasing butterflies through the park
distant thunder                                                                                            (p. 26)

Michael Dudley’s haiku may “feel” more traditional in subject matter, however here, too, the personal and the societal are clearly evident.

slow February snow . . .
        the last of my resolutions
                   quietly buried                                                                             (p. 71)

broken hockey stick
           shaft
    of a strike sign                                                                                          (p. 63)

Mother’s ashes
               dissipating
                         river cloud                                                                             (p. 77)

In his Introduction, Tom Clausen explains that he posts one haiku every day on the web site of the Albert R. Mann Library of Cornell University—a daily haiku practise begun long before web sites existed. He selected the thirty-one haiku of Interchange for January 2022. Clausen also comments on several of Dudley’s poems. Within the pages of this collection, however, the commentaries are by the poet himself. In this one, for example, he exposes the circumstances of his composition.

      no one home.
her note on the table
                      under a plum

I admire William Carlo Williams’s remarkable imagist poetry and can appreciate within this poem echoes of his iconic “This Is Just To Say.” However, this haiku accurately depicts a personally experienced domestic moment, wherein the plum was offered as a sensuous treat for me to enjoy while reading my beloved’s cursive words … for my eyes only. (p. 29)

Although there is a disclaimer of sorts concerning Williams’s poem, the plum may well have been selected as the paperweight because of “This Is Just To Say,” and certainly the lived experience evokes it for Dudley.

The commentaries for the twenty-four poems in Outsiders are by Joanne Morcom. Her insights often expand on the scene, revealing some of the pathos contained in the white space that a casual reader might not notice.

  sudden downpour
streetwalkers huddle
      in a doorway                                                                                           (N p. 28)

Outsiders are very much exposed to weather changes, which can be extreme and unexpected. In this setting, the door may be locked or blocked. Even if they gain entrance, they might not be welcome inside. Knowing this, they huddle in the pelting rain. Later they’ll go their separate ways and experience many other storms of life, both literal and symbolic.                                   (JM p. 29)

Both of these approaches to commentary are informative for a reader. Dudley provides the situation and the intertext that inform his poem. Readers, especially those who are learning about haiku, will see how important it is to choose details—and not try to cram everything into the brevity and lightness of a single haiku. Morcom imagines the sort of situation that might give rise to the haiku, and also how it ripples beyond the poem. For me, as a poet and as a reader, discussion is useful for learning and for appreciating. As well, the two approaches are quite complementary. When both types of discussion are produced independently for the same poem, the interpretive breadth extends even further (as it is, every week, in Keith Evetts’s re:Virals at The Haiku Foundation).

Aside from the haiku and commentaries, each poem in Interchange is paired with a photo by Clausen, in this case selected by Dudley. Clausen’s photos, reproduced in greyscale, show details of rural landscape through the seasons. They, too, complement the haiku.

I end my own reading, here, with one more from each book.

           gargling:
a spider on the ceiling
            pauses                                                                        (Dudley, p. 35)

        Christmas Eve
a bag lady drops a dime
          in the kettle                                                                             (Nika, p. 50)

Each poem, in its own way, shows how our living space is shared. Morcom, in the Authors’ Notes, in speaking of “the bag ladies, call girls, hobos, panhandlers, buskers and run-aways[,]” reveals that she “didn’t expect to be so moved by their daily struggles to survive, which is a tribute to Nika’s skills as a poet with a social conscience” (p. 5). In his Introduction, Clausen explains that he “tried to highlight a representative variety of [Dudley’s] eclectic and compelling range of haiku and senryu” (p. 18). The moments imparted by Nika and Dudley in these books are resonant. I thank them, as well as Morcom and Clausen, for sharing with us.

Maxianne Berger
November 2022

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