Poetic Musings: American Deaths Haiku by Scott Metz

only american deaths count the stars

Modern Haiku, 40:1, 2009

Scott Metz

Commentary by Philip Rowland: This concisely demonstrates the ambiguity that the one-line form affords. With the word “count” acting as a hinge, the poem makes a general, bitterly ironic claim: “only american deaths count.” However, it also allows for the verb to be read as an imperative (“count the stars”), so putting the claim in a broader, indeed cosmic, perspective—even while “stars” resonates satirically, in the popular sense akin to “heroes.” While traditionalists might dismiss the poem as too “message-y,” it touches on an important political topic and emotion in a particularly concise yet evocative way.

-- excerpted from "New Directions in English-Language Haiku: An Overview and Assessment" (IAFOR Journal of Literature & Librarianship, 2:2, September 2013, p. 57)

Scott effectively creates the cut with a pivotal word, "cut," and structures the haiku into two contrasting parts that "work dialectically and [touch] on an important political topic and emotion in a particularly concise yet evocative way." His sociopolitically conscious poem reminds me of the following 2-line haiku:

war dead

exit out of a blue mathematics

Sumimura Seirinshi

For more information about the effective use of one-line haiku, see my "To the Lighthouse" posts, "To Be or Not to Be a One-line Haiku?" and "Reexamining One-Line Haiku."