Transcriber: Cintia Martinez Reviewer: Denise RQ
I am often introduced as Alan Summers.
Summers is a seasonal reference and used quite a lot in haiku.
But I am closer to Ann Summers, in the spelling anyway!
My talk is called, "Amazement of the ordinary —
life trough a haiku lens."
"We see things not as they are, but as we are."
That’s a quote from the Talmud, is an ancient text,
containing opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects.
Now, I’m sure that many of us have been there,
overlooking the ordinary because we feel it’s— well, ordinary —
mundane, boring,
annoying, a distraction,
or mostly unnoticed in our busy schedule.
I’d like to talk about a tiny practice
of reading or writing haiku.
the world’s shortest type of poetry,
which can add an extra depth to our world.
I’m going to be adding examples of my own haiku poetry
to attempt to inject some lateral shift time,
as in our linear lives,
some of us rarely take time to step off, safely.
We’ve just got to keep going even if it kills us,
even if it alienates those we love.
So, lateral shift?
Bending time? No.
It’s just that sometimes, we are only aware of how long time is
if one: it’s horribly boring,
two: if we are in great danger.
This is your third choice, your extra option.
And so without a safety net,
to have something parallel on your timeline.
[Haiku]: "mist haze
a crow cleans its beak on a rooftop aerial."
Or perhaps you are a driver, worried you might miss
the early morning sights and sounds
of birds starting their own day.
[Haiku]: "traffic jam
a driver fingers the breeze through the sunroof."
One of the world’s greatest short story writers, Raymond Carver,
back in the old century,
wrote about people who worried
whether their cars would start in the morning.
About unemployment and debt,
of individuals who make our day to day life tick.
He never pretended a wonderland still existed, but he said:
"A writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand
and gape at this or that thing,
a sunset or an old shoe,
in absolute and simple amazement."
Are we not writers of our own life,
writing out cheques,
or pin numbering our way to coffee and snacks?
Or a last minute remembered bunch of flowers at the supermarket?
To filling our cars with petrol just to get somewhere!
[Haiku]: "an attic window sill
a wasp curls into its own dust."
And however much we afford our mortgage,
or can pay the landlord,
[Haiku]: "the rain
almost a friend this funeral."
As the 1931 song says,
"Brother, can you spare a dime?"
Brother, Sister, can you spare yourself a haiku moment?
[Haiku]: sunlight breaks
on a bird and its portion of the roof."
A day consists of 86,400 seconds.
A haiku is six seconds.
Try bending some time,
maybe on your travels, catching a —
[Haiku]: "train whistle
a blackbird hops along its notes."
Mary Oliver, a poet, said [in] "When death comes,"
"When it’s over, I want to say:
all my life I was a bride married to amazement.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world."
I’d like to end with this last haiku,
that takes less than six seconds to say,
and time me if you like.
[Haiku]: "this small ache
and all the rain too robin song."
Thank you for listening.
(Applause)