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Recently I found in my mail box a package from Croatia. Unwrapped, it
revealed a new book of haiku and senryu by Marinko Kovacevic,
Predan Putu [Committed To the Road] (1). This collection of haiku and senryu is
adroitly divided into five sections, each tinted by its own mood: "Predan Putu"
is idyllic; "A Child's Step" is tender; "An Offered Hand", tentative; "A Little
Island", contemplative; however, it is the fifth and final section, "The Miners'
Lamp," that will remain longest in my memory: (2)
From my palms
springs the memory of
of a mining youth.
Marinko writes me, " . . . by its subject, it lies on the very edge of
traditional haiku context." But there can be no 'edges' or limits to
haiku subject no more than there are limits to a poet's experience. Tradition
is not a static, unchanging set of rules and limitation of subject, but
ever-changing in the perception and variations used by each individual poet.
This is why no definition of haiku or senryu is satisfactory: each poet must
seek to define the principles of the haiku or senryu form and exercise the
freedom to choose the subject for himself.
In" The Miners' Lamp," the poet transports us into a world that is as
unfamiliar to most of us as was the world of haiku and senryu when we
first wandered into it. Before we could fully appreciate the meaning and
complexity of the haiku and senryu forms, we had to familiarize ourselves
with the history, geography, culture, and arts of Japan. Some of us had
to do so by reading translated poetry, books of explanation written by
western writers, and via museums that had extensive collections of
Japanese art and artifacts. (The fortunate ones were those who learned the
language and spent time in Japan.) It was necessary to go back four hundred years
or more in our efforts to grasp the subtle complexity of haiku and senryu. By this
same token, knowing something about coal mining and its history will
help a reader to fully appreciate the power of both haiku and senryu in "The
Miner's Lamp."
I've spent the greater part of my life in Eastern Pennsylvania within a
three or four hour drive of the Anthracite region. My father's business
required traveling to many small towns in the state. When he took a day
trip, and I was on school holiday, I often accompanied him. As a
child, I knew the coal mining towns, especially during the Great Depression of the
1930s. I saw how the miners lived; I heard old stories about the mines. I
have met the descendants of the operators and owners who amassed great fortunes
from the mines, and of those who founded industries dependent on coal in
adjacent towns. I've been aware of the history for a long time, and I have
visited closed mines that have been opened to tourists. What I have
learned and seen may not be apropos to the mine at Lubin where Marinko worked
in his youth. I cannot know to what degree that mine was modernized, nor
the conditions under which he worked. Nevertheless, keep in mind that
hard coal mining involves four basic operations: the drilling of holes in the
coal face to provide insertion of explosives used to break up the coal, the
explosion, the transferring of the broken coal to carriers that will bring it to
the surface, and the washing and sizing. When all this is done manually,
it is dangerous and back-breaking labor. During the 20th century, as mines
became more and more mechanized, the hardness of the labor decreased
and safety increased. But still, to work entire days deep underground in
a confined space may be bearable and economically rewarding, but neither
healthy nor pleasant.
What struck me forcibly about "The Miners' Lamp" section of Predan Putu is
its remarkable unity. Although it is presented as neither sequence nor
narrative, I find it impossible to isolate one haiku or senryu for analysis
without referring back to those that come before or to those that follow.
The title itself presents its primary image. Out of thirty-two haiku and
senryu, approximately two-thirds specifically mention the "miners'
lamp." Even when not mentioned, as when the miners at the end of their shift
emerge into the day, or rejoice in the freedom of Sundays, the lamp is still
there, its omission suggesting the brevity of release from the lamp's presence.
The miner forgets
the sun. He follows
his miner's lamp.
Whatever the reader learns about the mine or of the men who work in the
mine is shown him by the light of the miner's lamp. And by focusing
the reader's vision upon this small circle of light, it also conveys to
him the oppression felt by those who are forced to work within an enclosed area.
Juxtaposed to the image of the lighted lamp is a secondary image, more
often suggested than named---the darkness of the mine. The tension between
these two constantly contrasted states creates the unity of the whole.
Reading and rereading the haiku and senryu of "The Miner's Lamp," I
began to recognize the validity of Haruo Shirane's contention that the
vitality and complex meaning of a haiku depends upon both the "horizontal axis"
which describes the poet's experience at a particular moment, and of the
"vertical axis" which is "the larger communal body of poetic and cultural
associations." (3) But where are we to find this "vertical axis"? What
clues have we to show us where to look? Our clues are the two main
images: the mine's darkness is dangerous and threatening, therefore, undesirable
and evil; the lighted lamp is saving and comforting, therefore good and desirable. Kovacevic was brought up and educated in a Western world culture, so let us turn
back to some of its earliest sources of literature---to the Bible, to Virgil, and to Ovid that have served us as cultural guides and poetic inspiration for the past two millennia.
A developed coal mine is labyrinthine in its layout. Many galleries
lead off from the main gallery; the deeper mines have several levels of
galleries. Without light and without knowledge of a mine's topography, it would be
impossible to find a way out. The Cretan labyrinth which imprisoned the
Minotaur must have been similar to a mine. Of those who entered, none
returned except Theseus. The Underworld of the dead, ruled by Pluto was
also a dark and fearful place from which none returned. The Bible
tells of great sea monsters, Behemoth, the Leviathan. To make Jonah obey his
commands, "...the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And
Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights."
(Jonah l:17) To the man swallowed, a fish's belly would be as dark and as
confusing as an unlighted mine.
As for the image of the lighted lamp, the old poems also tell of
individuals who descended into the Underworld and returned, of those
who were lost in darkness and were saved. To the desert wandering
Israelites, God sent a pillar if fire to guide them by night. Theseus found his way
out of the labyrinth by following the golden thread held by Ariadne and the
Golden Bough served as a passport for Aeneas to enter and leave the
Underworld. Both the golden thread and the Golden Bough are metaphorically
akin to the lighted lamp.
Persephone, queen of the Underworld, was permitted by Zeus to spend
six months of the year above ground under the sky. I might have chosen
examples of poetry and poetic prose from more recent writers to show the
continuity of imagery and the relationship of theme, but the oldest seemed to
me the simplest and the best known.
I have said that "The Miners' Lamp" is not sequential, although I think
that Kovacevic originally started with this plan. As he wrote and
organized, the subject became too great in scope for confinement in a mere
sequence of a miner's day. Nevertheless, even as traces of this plan may be
visible at the beginning, the first few poems serve another function; they take
the reader into the mine. At the 'lamp house' --
Good luck!
The lamp-man offers me
a lamp and a greeting.
The next few deal with the transition from ground level to the dark
depths of the mine, the conquest of fear:
The shaft--
the mine's throat.
The pit gulps us down.
Having descended to the work level, the transition is not complete
until . . .
Bottom of the pit--
lit up by my miner's lamp
my world.
I also said that there is no narrative, but the imaginative reader can
select haiku and senryu from here and there to create one--the 'old
miner' might become the protagonist:
Chewing tobacco,
the old miner squeezes out
a word or two.
Tobacco kept the mouth moist. Also, the old-time miners believed it
kept the coal dust from going down the throat.
The siren's wail.
All eyes are fixed upon
the mine's tower.
An accident in the mine . . . a roof-fall! The 'old miner' is among the
victims. He is brought to the surface, but life has been crushed out of
him:
Before dying
the miner remembers
his lamp.
They've buried the old
miner. But not
his lamp.
The old miner goes underground for the last time, and for the first
time, without his lamp.
A miners' graveyard.
One more grave with a plaque--
EXHUMATION FORBIDDEN.
And it may be that his oldest comrades remember his first day in the
mine as a young man, proud and excited to begin his new career.
First time down the pit.
All shine their lights into the face
of the cheery boy.
The following two senryu and one haiku are my favorites and could stand
alone in any anthology. Kovacevic, wishing to stress the brotherhood of
miners, writes me, "No matter what country they are from, the miners
make a unique fraternity, therefore, in the destiny of the miners from
your land, I recognize a part of my own destiny, too." Where any group works
long hours together, where the safety and success of the group as a
whole depends upon the integrity of each individual, a bond is formed.
This bond is implied below without resort to sentimentality or heroism:
In the coalmine--
a lit-up lamp clearing the way
to a lamp gone out.
Then, here are two that gave me great visual pleasure:
An abandoned
mine gallery: two mushrooms
on a walk.
Shift change in the mine.
Down the galleries
marching lights.
In the first, we see these figures in silhouette only. With oversized
head-gear and sturdy bodies that taper down into boots, they resemble
mushrooms. In the second, like two lines of fireflies, each line
passes the other as they move in opposite directions. The lights of the new
shift will move faster with a sprightly rhythm, but those of the departing shift
will be slower with its staggered rhythm--a visual composition with
counterpoint.
After my first reading of the work, I recognized it as an important
contribution to contemporary haiku and senryu. Unfortunately, I was
unable to find words for reasons why it should be so. I invented for myself a
metaphor: consider the rock encasing the mine as a shell; pierce this
rock; enter into the darkness of the mine; feel your way along the
sides until you come upon the glow of the lamp. The shell is made of words;
the light within is the soul of the poet. This is true of all arts regardless
of medium. Fact is the mere shell and one must go beyond and beneath fact to
learn what the artist wished to communicate.
The final senryu:
My miner's
lamp shines,
even when it doesn't shine.
If you wished to confine yourself to literal facts, you would say: after
retiring from the mine, Marinko kept his lamp as a souvenir as many old
miners do. He kept it clean and polished so that even unlighted it
shone. However, for him it is more than a souvenir-- it is an icon. It is a
symbol of the qualities instilled in him by labor in the mine: courage, hope,
strength, endurance, and integrity. And these qualities have remained
with him and have served him well long after he left the mine for a different
life.
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