English Original
home alone
I enter the crawl space
of a younger self
The Heron’s Nest, 17:2, June 2015
Robert Epstein
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
獨自一人在家
我進入年輕時候的我
隱藏在房屋底層的爬行空間
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
独自一人在家
我进入年轻时候的我
隐藏在房屋底层的爬行空间
Bio Sketch
Robert
Epstein, a psychologist and haiku poet/anthologist, lives and works in
the San Francisco Bay Area. He has edited four anthologies: The Breath of Surrender; Dreams Wander On; The Temple Bell Stops; and Now This. He has written two books of haiku: A Walk Around Spring Lake; and Checkout Time is Noon, as well as a chapbook titled, What My Niece Said in His Head: Haiku and Senryu
The first line places the narrator in his domestic environment. There is no reason to consider that there is a problem, but for a certain generation — myself included — it is difficult not to recall the movie of this title and imagine a little boy who has been left behind accidentally in the family home.
ReplyDeleteThe second line introduces a sense of menace. Why is the child going to hide in the crawl space? Is he in imminent danger? The use of the verb ‘enter’ reinforces the small stature of the narrator, as it makes the crawl space feel positively cavernous.
When the reader arrives at line three and discovers it is a figurative crawl space rather than a physical location, for a second there is relief that this not actually happening. But then comes the creeping realisation that this is a memory, so the narrator must have experienced such fear on at least one occasion. Perhaps it was his parents’ raised voices during an argument that caused him to run and hide . . . or perhaps he was in real physical danger. The haiku is sufficiently open, thereby inviting the reader to draw upon their own childhood fears to complete the poem. Very effective.
-- excerpted from Marion Clarke's commentary, accessed at http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2016/07/01/revirals-42/
Possible allusions are sometimes a burden, sometimes a boon. Epstein’s ‘home alone’ demonstrates both these potentials.
ReplyDeleteLine one is initially weakened by the almost inevitable echo of the 1990 movie juggernaut and its sequels bearing these two words as their title. The films’ enormous popularity has made the phrase a modern cliché. However, if the reader can move beyond these associations, the opening line has much to offer. It takes us in a number of directions. There is a partial paradox as home is usually associated with family and friends. It is not simply a place where one feels comfortable, but a social setting shared with intimate others. Line one implies isolation. If it read ‘at home alone’, there would be a clearer suggestion of deliberate, perhaps enjoyed, seclusion. As written, the implications are less definite. This aloneness may be a matter of choice; however, it seems more likely it is not.
Line two is startling, both literally and metaphorically. Within a house, a crawl space is generally a shallow basement, a cavity so low that it is impossible to stand up within it. Crawl spaces are often found in dwellings built in areas with very cold winters as they are dug so that the foundations are below the frost line and there is less structural strain from seasonal contraction and expansion. Those living in warm regions are less likely to be familiar with crawl spaces. For some, the term may provoke memories of Sylvia Plath’s A Bell Jar. Plath’s protagonist hides in a basement crawl space during a suicide attempt (as had Plath herself). There are suggestions here of a spiritual hard winter, of a soul seeking to last out a time of dearth; perhaps, as Plath writes in “Lady Lazarus”, ‘not come back at all’.
The mood shifts with line three and the poem acquires an even more metaphysical dimension. The crawl space to be entered is that ‘of a younger self’. Again the implications are less than certain. Is it that N is recalling a previous time of fear and isolation? To be ‘home alone’ is probably most distressing for a child. Is N experiencing a recurrence of a previous depression? For readers who catch an allusion to Plath’s life and work the implications are concerning. Or is N simply withdrawing into a previous retreat, perhaps even a place of comfort, concrete or imagined? Our questions are left unresolved.
By the end of the haiku, Epstein has completely transcended any trite associations which line one may have carried for some readers and has created a poem which is evocative and unsettling.
-- excerpted from Jo McInerney's commentary, accessed at http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2016/07/01/revirals-42/