Because spring snow can fall wet and hard, or cover the ground like a light dusting of sugar, its emotional range is very wide for a word of the season. It can be used to celebrate delicate beauty. . . or to express grief almost too much for words. Overall, the haikus won and honored last month cover the full range of feelings associated with this paradoxical seasonal phenomenon.
- Susan Polizzotto he shares a moment of intimacy with his father as he shovels snow, a bit of shaving cream still clinging to his chin.
- Nancie Zivetz-Gertler he realizes that after the age of seventy he can perceive joy and sorrow as “the two sides of the spring snow”.
- Marcia Burton he expresses the weight of loss as “the silence of spring snow” that settles in a room after a stillbirth.
Congratulations to everyone! To read more merit poems from past months, visit our Tricycle Haiku Challenge group on Facebook.
You can submit a haiku for the current challenge here.
Spring season word: Spring snow
WINNER:
a little baby
shaving cream on his chin
father shovels spring snow
—Susan Polizzotto
Throughout its thousand-year history, haiku has often been described as “the art of juxtaposition.” Even in his day rengathe collaborative linked verse form developed in the Heian period (794-1185), they understood that the essence of art is combining two images. In terms of poetic technique, one cannot wish for anything simpler than this. And yet, it can take a lifetime to master.
The pairing of the poet’s shaving cream and spring snow in the winning poem of our April Haiku challenge is inherently comical. In the beginning, the “little bitch” on her father’s chin is enough to draw us into the poem. Once there, however, the juxtaposition unfolds, revealing additional layers of meaning and emotion. Most of all, his affection for his father appears. Everything else flows through this open channel.
You must not know about shaving cream. It’s morning and the first walk and driveway must be shoveled before leaving for work. If the snow was heavier than usual, it could take longer, which explains why he missed a spot while shaving in his haste to get the job done.
Despite this, we do not feel any urgency or heaviness in the poem. We can see the poet smiling to himself and letting him finish before pointing out the obvious so he doesn’t go to work like that. At the back of the poem is a feeling we often associate with spring snow – the slight relaxation of the body, even in the midst of exertion, accompanied by the optimism that comes naturally with the arrival of early spring – the lightness of the heart that lives in the little missing patch of shaving cream paired with the image of snow.
When I found out who wrote the winning poem, I had a gut feeling to ask him for a little background. In addition to teaching haiku and Japanese calligraphy, Susan Polizzotto translated the works of Chiyo-ni (1703-1775), a female master who is now recognized as one of the greatest haiku poets of Edo period Japan. Publishes a selection of Chiyo-ni’s 135 haikus in English (some translated for the first time). World poetry in 2028.
When I asked Susan about her memories of her father shoveling spring snow, this was her response:
I grew up in Binghamton, NY – the snow belt. There was always plenty to shovel, including the heavier, wet snowfalls of the spring. I was often out with my father. When I was younger, snow was one of our connections. . . shoveling and skiing. He used to say, “It snows in Binghamton every month of the year except August.” The saying has become part of our family tradition.
I would have been 12 or 13 at the time of the poem, which is not specific to a specific day, but to various images of him – for example, when he shaves in the morning before starting to become an electrical engineer. His father was a barber, his first job as a boy was in my grandfather’s shop. He is now 86 and we are still very close.
Are these specific details included in the poem? Not. But the feeling behind them is. It lives in the mixture of seasonality and human emotion that characterizes the finest haiku.
TRIBUTES:
after seventy
begins to understand
spring snow on both sides
– Nancie Zivetz-Gertler
a stillborn baby
the silence of the spring snow
settles in the room
— Marcia Burton
◆
You can read about the words of the April season as well as relevant haiku tips in last month’s challenge below:
Spring season word: “spring snow”
like a ray of sunshine
enough to topple it
billowing spring snow
Submit as many haiku as you like that contain the word “spring snow”. Your poems should be written in three lines of 5, 7, or 5 syllables respectively, and should focus on a single moment that just happened.
Be clear in your description and try to limit the topic. Haiku are almost always better if they don’t have too many ideas or images. So focus on the soy of the season* and try to stay close to that.
* REMEMBER: To be eligible for the challenge, your haiku must be 5-7-5 syllables long and contain the words “spring snow”.
Haiku tip: Discover the world of the word of the season!
Temperatures fluctuate as winter gives way to spring, causing snow to melt quickly – often in a single day. This period of seasonal overlap is sometimes called “false spring” because it makes us believe that winter is really over.
THE waka until 11th 20th-century poet Izumi Shikibu captures the spirit of this liminal “microseason,” which can last from a week to a single day:
I broke a branch
assuming that the plum tree
came to bloom
but it was only spring snow
disguised as a flower.
Because it melts quickly, spring snow symbolizes fleeting beauty and is sometimes associated with tragedy—especially in matters of the heart. Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) therefore chose the word season yuki no haru (“spring snow”) as the title of his opening book The Tetralogy of Fertility. The novel depicts the relationship between teenage lovers Kiyoaki and Satako, a doomed relationship that leaves one dead and the other traumatized enough to withdraw from the world to become a Buddhist nun.
Spring snow is extremely diverse as a meteorological phenomenon. Depending on the temperature and moisture content of the air, it can be more difficult to lift with a shovel than “dry” snow in January or February. Or it can feel light to the point of weightlessness, especially if it falls quickly and barely dusts the ground.
Takahama Kyoshi’s (1874-1959) haiku captures the delicate beauty of spring snow:
a little spring snow
balanced on top of the spoon
floating in water
“A floating ladle is light at first,” wrote Japanese literary critic Ooka Makoto. “The soft spring snow piled on top is even brighter. What the poem points to is spring itself.”
The ladle in question is made of bamboo and consists of a small cup attached to a long, thin handle. Spring snow is balanced on this handle – as if resting on a branch.
Kyoshi was a master of a modern technique called sketching from nature, but even his most objective, “just a picture” poems have additional layers of meaning. In the snow balancing on top of the spoon, we can feel all the nuances and complexities of his Buddhist worldview.
As the sun warms, the snow loses its footing and slides into the water. . . divorce water. Which of course is natural – although at that moment her beauty disappears as if it never existed. Not by chance, The sea of fertility ends on a similar note.
In the last scene The decay of the angelKiyoaki’s friend Honda (now a sick 82-year-old man) travels to the monastery where Satako serves as abbess. When Honda tells her that she followed Kiyoaki’s soul through successive incarnations, Satako tells her that everything is ephemeral and void of its self-nature. . . including Kiyoaki.
And so the tetralogy ends where it began—with the recognition that beauty and sadness are two aspects of a single phenomenon. It’s a bit like spring snow. Sometimes it’s heavy, sometimes it’s light, yet it melts into water.
Mishima died of ritual suicide at the age of 45, just hours after writing the book’s final scene. Kyoshi lived to be 85 years old. This gives two different views of emptiness and the meaning of spring snow.
