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. | Id | Haijin | Stanzas | Season | Kigo | Link | Theme 1:
Vestiges | Theme 2:
Man-made objects | |
. | 1 | /tk | Icy Road —
a plastic bag rolls,
right, left. | Winter | Icy road | To 6: Right & Left | Discarded plastic bag | Plastic bag | |
. | 2 | /vs | A tangled cassette tape —
an end flaps in the chill. | Winter | Chill | To 1: Plastic | Broken cassette | Cassette tape | |
. | 3 | /tk | Revolving door —
cold and warm air
briefly touch. | Winter | Cold air | To 2: Repeating motion | Previously entering / exiting | Revolving door | |
. | 4 | /vs | Frost patterns
form on the window pane —
finger print. | Winter | Frost | To 3: Door / Window | Finger print | Window pane | |
. | 5 | /tk | A single glove — fingers
point toward the exit. | Winter | Glove | To 4: Finger | Previous loss of the glove | Glove | |
. | 6 | /vs | Clock tower —
big and little hands frozen
at nine-twelve. | Winter | "Frozen" | To 5: Pointing | The clock once working | Clock's hands | |
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. | Technical Notes: | | | | | | | | |
. | Toshiaki's tastes in haiku have changed somewhat over the years. One aspect of this that surfaces in his art and haiku is the balance between man-made and natural objects. In haiku he has often been attracted to writing about ordinary and often neglected aspects of modern civilization. Human impact on nature leaves impressions and vestiges. We therefore decided early on to feature these two things as themes in this rengay: Vestiges and Man-made objects. | | | | | | | | |
. | 1. There is a deep sympathy for the plastic bag associated with this verse. The bag has been discarded as garbage, it isn't noticed by anyone, and no one cares about it. Still, it moves on and tumbles left, then right in an aimless, directionless manner. It is also easy to identify with the bag and to wonder where you are heading in life. | | | | | | | | |
. | 2. Every so often one encounters a broken cassette tape with the tape from inside tangled up, often in a ball on a tree or bush. As CD's have mostly replaced cassettes this sight is becoming less and less common. The concept in this verse corresponds the relentless forward motion of technological advances and how past advances eventually fall by the wayside. | | | | | | | | |
. | 3. This verse portrays the feeling of a brief encounter: warm with cold. Inside it is warm, outside it is cold, and the revolving door mixes a little bit of each on each revolution. It connects outside strangers with people inside that are familiar. As well, it represents the connection between "my world" and "the outside world". | | | | | | | | |
. | 4. When someone leaves a finger print on a window (e.g. house, car), the frost when it gets quite cold out will form a pattern that reveals the finger print that was previously invisible. | | | | | | | | |
. | 5. The image here is of a lost glove near the exit of a store or building. Perhaps it was a child's who had been playing and was suddenly called away. As with the plastic bag in verse 1, there is also a sympathetic notion, as if the glove was "feeling" left behind and was desiring to be outside once again providing warmth for its owner. | | | | | | | | |
. | 6. Perhaps the clock tower is old and neglected or maybe it is so cold out that the clock mechanism has frozen solid. The 9:12 reference is symbolic of the period after the 9-11 disaster when the world seemed to go into a paralyzed state. We are only now beginning to recover somewhat from this somewhat paralyzed, winterish state. | | | | | | | | |
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. | This rengay was written with Toshiaki Koike who was born in Iwakura, a town near Nagoya, Japan. Toshiaki attended Shizuoka University where he studied Japanese Literature and was the leader of the University's haiku circle. It was there that he met his future wife Carol who had come to Japan from Canada as an exchange student. Through a later exchange of tanka and haiku poems a romance developed and they were eventually married. Ten years later they moved to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada where Carol's mother was living. Their story is more fully described here:
http://www.ualberta.ca/~publicas/folio/34/20/06.html
Masago met Toshiaki at the 2006 Edmonton Summer Arts Festival where Toshiaki was displaying some of his artwork. They became fast friends and have been meeting regularly every two weeks since then to discuss English language, Japanese language & culture, and haiku poetry. | | | | | | | | |
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