In Defense of the Small and Unassuming

by e. nork, blog writer

In a recent English class, my teacher, a disciple of Salinger and Fitzgerald and Vonnegut and Joyce, abandoned momentarily his satirical, hoary tendency to impart upon the class the following haiku, by Matsuo Basho:

Summer is over,

And we part, like eyelids

Like clams opening.

An echoing deluge of comments essentially saying “the poem is too short to say anything meaningful” ensued from my classmates. I felt the immediate urge, as a zealot for all things small and contained and economical, to counter this negativity - as if the poem were a new flower, and I its watchful, overly sentimental bee careening headlong at a passing lawnmower. I realized, though, after I gushed my ornamented sentiments for the haiku form and the “color” of the poem and some self-interested particularity, that this is not the nature of things that are small and contained and economical - the poem was not happy that, in my efforts to keep it watered, I drowned it with hose.

It got me thinking - what is the role in this world for a small and precious thing? Surely a little poem has its place, as must a daisy or a brook or a banana. I once heard a professor say “poetic language perfumes reality”, and after realizing he was right I vehemently disagreed. Sure, it does sometimes: wrapping a love sonnet in linen doesn’t allow the poem near the inner, indubitable nature of its speaker. More often, however, poetry cracks and splays a moment like a walnut, digging fingers in the woody and basal and realest real reality can offer. (if you do not agree, I suggest you consult Yeats’ “The Second Coming” or Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”)

Often I’ve heard the critique of the haiku, of small poems in general, that they fail to capture the reality of our surroundings. I ask this, then, to all who seek more in small poems - I see on my desk a parched teacup, a potted plant, a pencil, a box of stationery. They are humble, they are quiet and unassuming. Are they not a reality too, at least one?

A final word - as much to myself as to anyone else - feel free to love whatever kind of poem you enjoy, no matter how simple or lowbrow or else labyrinthine it may be. Be it the Aeneid or a linguistic pebble, you’ve gotten the opportunity, the blessing, to let words touch you.

#enork #misc