Poetic Musings: Summer Storm Haiku by Jo McInerney

summer storm

the windscreen wipers

slice our silence

2009 Jack Stamm Award

Jo McInerney

Commentary: As in mise-en-scène, three shots are very carefully selected and placed before the reader. As in montage, we see unconnected images (like film shots) cut and pasted to form a whole. This is also a lovely example of how the “cut” is used in haiku to show the juxtaposition of two parallel images. These nuanced techniques organically strengthen and layer the storytelling aspect of the poem.

summer storm: The reader is given a picture of a summer storm, which brings to mind the onset of the rainy season. As a reader, I can see myself out there in the open, viewing the sky. Is there a hint of a storm brewing in the minds of the people in the car, too?

the windscreen wipers: The second line actually puts me behind the steering wheel, or I might be a passenger. I hear the rapid movement of the windscreen wipers as they swish from left to right.

These first two lines create the scène in which the action will occur.

slice our silence: This is an amazing leap that takes us into the interior worlds of these two people – who might they be? A couple? A parent and a child? Perhaps people with some sharp difference of opinion? We are all familiar with such silences. The story is left unfinished for the reader to fill in the details. In haiku this technique is called the semi-circle, where some space is left for the reader to step in... 

-- excerpted from "To the Lighthouse: Link and Shift: The Leap in Our Understanding by Kala Ramesh"