Peeling an Orange, Peggy Heinrich (poetry/haiku)

December sunset
putting aside her journal
to peel an orange

This title haiku is representative of much the work found throughout Peggy Heinrich's collection: a vivid image expressed simply, some personal reflection, a small moment that gathers significance the longer one sits with it.

Organized seasonally with black and white photographs by John Bolivar marking the passage of time, it gives us a year in haiku. And like most years, it is not without its challenges.

sleepless at night...
some of the sheep
won't jump the fence

Dead-of-night anxieties are captured vividly in the recalcitrant sheep; this glancing suggestion of something greater below the surface typifies what makes this and other Heinrich haiku so effective.

For example, look at how green conveys multiple meanings in this haiku:

in the hammock
forgetting he-said-she-said
so many shades of green

The pettiness of fingerpointing fades in the face of so much new life; at the same time, "shades of green" also suggest shadows and envy.

Published in 2009 by The MET Press, Peeling an Orange is the work of a very gifted poet.

These are not poems that trumpet their brilliance. They are small jewels that reflect moments in time with seeming effortlessness and quiet grace. This is a collection that rewards re-reading.

The Unworn Necklace, Roberta Beary (poetry/haiku)

hating him
between bites
of unripe plums

Roberta Beary's haiku often give the reader a sensory double-shot. When I read the above haiku, for example, I feel the hardness of the immature heart-shaped fruit even as my mouth puckers with the bitterness of plum and love gone sour.

For five years in the 90s, Beary lived in Tokyo, where she began her study of haiku. It was time well-spent. Although The Unworn Necklace is her first collection, many of the haiku within are award-winners.

As one whose cats heighten my own awareness of the natural world, I immediately identified with this, which won Honorable Mention in the National League of American Pen Women's International Haiku Contest 1997:

not hearing it
till the cat stirs
birdsong

And I was struck by the emotional subtlety and suggestion of something greater than we can know in this haiku, which was awarded Grand Prize in the Kusamakura International Haiku Competition in 2006:

thunder
the roses shift
into shadow

And this:

funeral home
here too
she straightens his tie

That bittersweet acknowledgement is what I respond to in so many of Beary's haiku. This is haiku that echoes in the mind and heart long after the book has been put away.

Morning Haiku, Sonia Sanchez (poetry/haiku)

Sonia Sanchez is a prolific and award-winning poet, distinguished by the originality and range of her voice. But she is not a poet who comes to mind when I think of haiku.

And were they my own, I probably would not call the sequences in her recent collection haiku. These are human-centered fragments, in which kigo rarely appear. Few can stand outside the context of their sequences. Their power is in their layering.

They reminded me of a conversation I have had many times with my husband. Frustrated in my efforts to acquire rudimentary Japanese, I keep searching for the secret to fluency. His response, as a linguist and as someone who moves easily between languages: "At some point, you have to claim it and make it your own."

In her brief introduction, Sanchez writes of discovering haiku as a young woman and knowing immediately it offered something both ordinary and extraordinary, a connection to her true nature and to that which is greater than self, and she cites Patricia Donegan's Haiku Mind to elucidate. So, this is not a casual grabbing of a label. She has claimed this form and makes it her own. A few excerpts:

11.
to be born
to be raped
each journey a sudden wave
--from "sister haiku (for Pat)"

5.
("Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald")

Nose. mouth. eyes.
green. orange.
yellow voice spinning....
--from "6 haiku (for Beauford Delaney)"

10.
your hands
shimmering on the
legs of rain
--from "10 haiku (for Max Roach)"

This last sequence in honor of American jazz drummer Max Roach is stunning, especially in performance. You can hear Sanchez reading it at NPR in an April 2009 recording.

Morning Haiku is a praise song of a different sort. These are activist haiku, embracing humanity and celebrating connection to family, friends and those who came before us.

To Hear the Rain, Peggy Lyles (poetry/haiku)

for her mother
bluets
roots and all

This haiku – with its echoes of 'oo' in bluets and roots and suggestion of bluesy longing – is among my favorites from this collection of Peggy Lyles' haiku. Lyles has long been recognized for her prize-winning haiku and currently serves as one of four associate editors for The Heron's Nest.

At its best, her haiku serve up surprises from the natural world and are evocative of the complexities of human interaction and emotion. Other favorites in this collection:

reaching for green pears —
the pull
of an old scar

The hint of inexperience and immaturity suggested in 'green' gives deeper resonance to the pull of the old scar. And the immediacy of:

piano lesson
her braids outdo
the metronome

I am captivated by the image of those braids beating time, and the play of outdo with its suggestion of hairdo gone wild.