rainy season
the sky pours
into my shoes
Editor’s Choice, World Haiku Review, January 2015
Maria Tomczak
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
雨季
天空傾倒雨水
到我的鞋子裡
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
雨季
天空倾倒雨水
到我的鞋子里
Bio Sketch
Maria
Tomczak lives in Opole, Poland. She enjoys writing haiku, poems and
short stories. As a mother she also writes fairy tales for her son. She
is interested in Japanese culture and poetry, especially haiku and
related forms.
( Editor's Note: This is the last haiku accepted for consideration for inclusion in Butterfly Dream Anthology, III)
( Editor's Note: This is the last haiku accepted for consideration for inclusion in Butterfly Dream Anthology, III)
Commentary by World Haiku Review Editor:
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I thought of when I read this haiku was the famous poem by Matsuo Basho: samidare wo atsume-te hayashi mogami-gawa (Gathering the rains of summer, how swift it is - Mogami-gawa River from weblio) This conjures up an image of the heavens opening up and pouring what they have down to the river. Another poem by him has a similar feel about it: araumi ya sado ni yokotau ama-no-kawa (the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way from Wikipedia)
To be compared to two of the most famous works of Basho would be an honour for the author, to put it mildly. Whether or not she was inspired by them would be a moot point. What I can feel confident in my bones is that it is not an imitation. Whether or not the author was aware of Basho’s poems makes no difference to the quality of her own poem.
The best bit in my opinion is the third line (into my shoes). In many ways it is wonderful. Firstly, the contrast between the vastness of the entire firmament and the smallness of one’s pair of shoes is most effective. The exaggeration somehow escapes outlandishness and is curiously convincing. Our expanded and general perspective gets suddenly and sharply focused on narrow, concrete specificity. It is also outstanding because of the word shoes, which is most humble and ordinary but personal and essential to our day-to-day existence. The depiction of the sky pouring into her shoes gives the poem a comic aspect, which means that this haiku has an important ingredient of good haiku- sense of humour.
With the feeling about the author’s shoes flooded with water, we also can almost feel the kind of deluge which we watch horrified on the television far more frequently nowadays than in the past. Living with the climate change we seem to have unusual weather events all the time everywhere in the world, including of course severe floods. In this sense this haiku is a timely observation as well. I wish to give a high praise to the author and hope to read more excellent haiku by her in years to come.
"...the contrast between the vastness of the entire firmament and the smallness of one’s pair of shoes is most effective. The exaggeration somehow escapes outlandishness and is curiously convincing..."
ReplyDeleteMaris's effective use of hyperbole makes this haiku fresh and it enhances the "hai" aspect of the haiku.
For more information about hyperbole, see my "To the Lighthouse" post, "A Rhetorical Device, Hyperbole," which can be accessed at http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.ca/2015/03/to-lighthouse-rhetorical-device.html