43Essays

Haiku Toolbox: Synesthesia
Paul MillerI

ssue 23:3 of Frogpond (2000) contained an important essay on haiku
poetics by Lynx editor Jane Reichhold, entitled Haiku Techniques. It
formalized out loud the seemingly obvious idea that haiku had internal
structures, and that different relationships between the two parts of a haiku
could lead to different readings. True to this day, overmuch has been madeof haiku’s historical link to Zen Buddhism, and poems are often explained
from a religious or spiritual perspective. Poems are rarely spoken of in technical terms. To use a poem from H.F. Noyes’ Favorite Haiku series as an
example:The old rooster crows …
Out of the mist come the rocks
and the twisted pine
O Mabson Southard1

When writing about this poem, Noyes commented on: “nature’s interpenetration,” “sabi and wabi,” “suchness,” and said, “This haiku calls forth
the spirit of the universe. All of life at all times, if we could but see it, isinterdependently arising, ever in flux and always meriting our attention.”
There is no mention of technique.
Elsewhere, Robert Spiess, in one of his famous Speculations, wrote:“Haiku poets do not so much make haiku as that they express the wonder that arises in their heart from the configuration of entities in a nowmoment.”2 The word “express” seems to suggest that there is no craft involved. As anyone who has ever attempted to write a haiku knows, thatis clearly not the case.
A haiku is usually made up of two parts. For example:
old pond / a frog jumps in sound of water

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Modern Haiku 44.3

Reichhold argued that what made many haiku successful were the uses ofliterary techniques between the two parts of the poem, techniques suchas comparison, contrast, riddle, double entendre, etc. She looked under
the hood of twenty-three such techniques, illustrated with examples
from her own work, and suggested there were more to be found.
Japanese poet and editor Ogiwara Seisensui famously remarked of haiku,
that one half is completed by the poet while the other half is supplied by
the reader.3 It is perhaps this completion by the reader, with all their accompanying associations, that leads readers to feel haiku at the expenseof understanding how they work. This is a good thing to be sure. Haiku
are poems of engagement and we as poets want readers to immerse themselves in a poem. In the case of Basho’s old pond: to feel the stillness of
the air, perhaps smell the still pond, to hear the silence—then experience
the sharp sound of the frog diving into the water. We want the reader toexperience it on their own, in their own way; and they can’t do that if thepoet’s hand is glaringly out in front. To quote a well-known saying in haiku circles: “We should see the moon, not the bejeweled finger pointing
at the moon.” Robert Spiess encouraged such invisibility in another of
his Speculations: “Among the attributes of a haiku of excellence is that although it observes technique it has not the slightest strain of technique.”4
While his mention of technique is welcome, what this means however, isthat the role of technique in haiku is usually invisible, and arguably underappreciated. I’d like to reverse that view, if but temporarily.
In this essay I’d like to revisit the technique Reichhold called SenseSwitching, also known as Synesthesia. Toshimi Horiuchi, in his essay
Synesthesia in Haiku, defines it as “closely associating a sensory experience of one kind with a sensory experience of another.”5 It is in fact, aneurological condition, in which a sensory experience (say a sound) isinterpreted by a patient as another sensory experience (say a color, or ataste). In a short form such as haiku, the combination of different sense
imagery can produce interesting effects, and help broaden, or even steer areader’s reading of a poem.

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Visual vs. Auditory
The most commonly seen type of sense-switching is the comparison ofvisual stimuli to aural. A good example is another of Bashō’s poems:
the sea darkens —a wild duck’s callfaintly white6
Here a sound (the duck’s call) becomes a color (white). The commentators in Ueda’s Basho and His Interpreters give a number of explanationsof the poem: that the white is really the whitecaps on the dark sea, or
the whiteness of the duck itself … or even the imagined white breath ofthe duck (the poem was written in January). We can’t know what Bashōintended, but the switch adds greatly to the reading of this poem. Firstoff, it surprises us! It adds a sense of wonder, of magic. It takes a rather
bleak scene (a duck on a dark sea) and makes it extraordinary. Secondly,it heightens the contrast of the duck and the darkening sea, letting eachone be seen against the shadow of the other. By adding a second sense, thepoet more fully constructs the scene.
A poem from Issa:
The young sparrow
calls its parents
with a yellow voice7To me, a yellow voice is a light voice, a small voice. Here, a fledgling sparrow—a spring kigo—calls to its parents. But the introduction of the color
yellow adds an illumination to the scene, an illumination that seems larger than just the small voice, but like the rising sun, is also the expansiveness of the season itself.
These two poems are “transformational”, meaning that one sense becomes another. In both cases, a sound becomes a color. This is more Japanese than American. Americans, most likely because of the stigma against
similes, metaphors, personification, etc … any traditional poetic device,46

Modern Haiku 44.3

prefer to use sense-switching in a ‘proximate’ way, where the two senses
stand side by side. A good example is a poem by Lee Gurga.
winter prairie —a diesel locomotive
throttles down in the night8
Read by itself, our reaction to the first line is a visual one: an endless setof low rolling hills, with very little, if any, life. Maybe the one distant lightof the Ingalls’ cabin. A train passing through that scene, if only a visual
image, doesn’t add much. But the sound of a train does. As readers of
this poem, we have now engaged a second sense. The poem is no longera picture of a prairie, or a picture of a prairie with a train in it; it is now apicture with sound. An analogy might be like going from the old silent
black and white pictures to talkies. And that second sense bleeds into
the first. In this case the prairie gains a bit of life; and the sound of thelocomotive gains a breadth—the breadth of the prairie. It is a sound thatmuch like the prairie lingers long after the poem has been read.
We can also go back to O Mabson Southard’s poem to see how theintroduction of a second sense enlivens the scene.
The old rooster crows …
Out of the mist come the rocks
and the twisted pine
In this case, the sound makes the rocks and pine a bit sharper, and perhaps more alive as possible animate objects.
The sense-switching in the Gurga and Southard poems isolated eachpart of the poem, yet strengthened the poem overall. In a poem by Benjamin Moeller, this happens as well, but because of the closeness of the twoparts of the poem, it helps to create a more unified scene.
one star
now two …
frog songs9

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Essays

The following poems by Harr and Hoyt are interesting, because they areboth doing a similar thing, but with different results.
After the snowfall …
In that empty house,deep in the pine forest
with broken windows rattling,
the sound of the axe.
a door slams and slams.
10		
Lorraine Ellis Harr 		Clement Hoyt11
In the Harr poem, the sound of the axe makes the forest that much emptier; yet in the Hoyt, the sound of the house makes it seem livelier.
One interesting feature of sense-switching is its ability to draw attention
to a particular part of a poem. In the case of the below poem, the switch
forces a particular reading.
the telephonerings only once
autumn rain
Nick Avis12

In this poem, ask yourself if you saw the autumn rain or heard it? Thefocus on sound in the first half directs the reading of the second half. If
the two parts of the poem were switched, and the rain came first, I would
expect half of the readers to see the rain.
Visual vs. Olfactory
The poems discussed so far have all been a pairing of a visual image with asound. But there are other senses. The following poem by LeRoy Gorman
pairs a scent with an image.
for the smell
I plane another shaving
snow buries my tracks from the house13

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Modern Haiku 44.3

In this poem, the rich smell of the wood shavings evokes a workshop.
When we switch to the visualization of the snowfall, I find—because mysense of smell has been engaged—that the snowfall also has a heavy smell
to it. It’s not a workshop scent; but a smell of its own. I’ll admit the scentof snow is rather elusive, but I know it as a heavy, yet clean scent. Anotherpoem by Lee Gurga:
the smell of the ironas I come down the stairs
winter evening14
The Gurga poem is wonderful for a number of reasons. ‘winter evening’on its own conjures up a crispness to the air, which the iron smell seems
to flatten a bit (no pun intended), and then I find myself smelling otherwinter smells: wood smoke, evergreens—none of which would be possible if the iron smell hadn’t opened my reading up to smells. Another:a shower darkens —in the summer bookstore
the smell of new novels
Burnell Lippy15

This is a nice contrast. The light, woody smell of new books, against adim, damp evening outside. In the Proscal poem below, it turns out thatthe deserted field isn’t so deserted after all.
deserted field —on waves of heat
wild onion scent
Gloria H. Procsal16

Haiku poets, and editors especially, speak a lot about “showing” and not“telling.” Yet how do you show the unseen onions without mentioning
them? In this case, through smell. And the reader make the connection.

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Visual vs. Tactile
Another category of sense-switching is the pairing of visual images withtactile impressions. Another poem from Lorraine Ellis Harr:
A hot summer wind —shadows of the windmill blades
flow over the grass.17
With a different first line, the shadows—essentially insubstantial—could
easily be seen as weightless. But the pairing in this poem with a hot summer wind that we can feel adds a heaviness to the last lines. The Japanese masters used tactile impressions quite a bit, in phrases like “summerwind,” “autumn coolness,” and my favorite, “the heat!” Tactile impressions, especially about the weather, are powerful ways to open a poem toadditional senses. A haiku by Michael Dylan Welch,toll booth lit for Christmas —from my hand to hers
warm change18
Christmas lights on their own are a cold, outdoor image. Welch adds ahumanity, a personalization to them through the touch of the toll boothattendant. That the attendant is of the opposite sex adds a different glow
to the scene. One from John Wills:
a box of nails
on the shelf of the shed
the cold19
How much harder do the nails feel because of the pairing with the cold?
earthshineon the new moonfirst kiss
Keith Heiberg20

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Modern Haiku 44.3

The Heiberg poem is a wonderfully sensual poem. The sense of newness,excitement, or possibility in a first kiss makes a great contrast to an ordinary celestial event. Yet rather than simply see the moon, we feel it. The
pairing brings the moon a bit closer, making it less cold and distant.
Visual vs. Gustatory
I found only one example of the pairing of a visual image to a taste—inJane Reichhold’s Frogpond essay—which is surprising since it is an interesting pairing of senses. Her own poem:
home-grown lettuce
the taste of well-water
green21
I’ll add my own as further illustration.
van Gogh’s Starry Nightthe too-sweet taste
of cotton candy
Olfactory vs. Auditory
Because we are such visual creatures, sense pairings that don’t involvesight are the least tangible, yet they can produce stunning effects. A pairing of scent and sound from Claire Everett:scent of snow
unable to recall
my father’s voice22
While she can’t recall the exact voice, I find a confusion of all voices inthis poem that works nicely with the scent of snow, which I find equally
hard to pin down. The last two lines are like entering a crowded roomand trying to isolate something unidentifiable that’s just a whisper. But

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Essayswithout that “scent of snow” line, the last two lines would just be a comment. And rather than hear a variety of voices, I’d hear just the poet’s.
Another of mine:
the long creakof the front doorher perfume
Tactile vs. Auditory
Mathematically, if you have five senses, there are four other senses you
can combine each with. But since each is duplicated in the process (sightvs. sound is the same as sound vs. sight) there are really only ten possiblecombinations. An example from Gary Hotham of combining touch andsound:unsnapping
the holster strap
summer heat
Gary Hotham23

Summer heat is oppressive, heavy. That tactile impression makes a nicecontrast for a sharp, metallic sound. The heat makes the sound linger longer than it would on its own. Here, each sense stands out sharper. Twoothers:
The sound of a mouse
Treading on a plate
Is cold.
Buson24

Spring morning

gravedigger whistling
George Swede25

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Modern Haiku 44.3

Multiple and Other
The combination of senses can add to the fullness of a poem, and it would
be logical to think that if two senses are good, then three must be better.
Horiuchi, in his paper Synesthesia in Haiku, seems to suggest so. He offers the following examples26:
Islands all around,each with its pine tree; and the wind —how cool its soundShiki

The old man’s voiceis the color of his hair
this frosty night
Gregory D. Cottrell

These haiku are too busy for my taste and lack focus. The multiple sensory inputs send the reader in too many directions at once. The best haiku
are those that engage the reader, and sense imagery can help to expand
the reader’s palate, but the best haiku are more importantly focused.

T

his paper has looked at the major senses and how their pairings withother senses can deepen the reading of a haiku experience, and somewould rightly suggest that in addition to our traditional five senses there
are the elusive sixth sense, spatial sense, the sense of time, and probably
others. For these the benefits of an effective pairing would be the same.
Ultimately, haiku are about engagement—about getting the reader toengage with the scene that the poet is presenting, or more specifically,
with the sense images that the poet delivers—that hopefully create ascene. In a form as brief as haiku every image needs to work to its fullest extent. As I mentioned earlier, perhaps the effect of a multi-sensory
haiku can be thought of as going from silent films to talkies. That’s quitea change.

Essays

53Notes
H.F. Noyes, Favorite Haiku: Volume 1 (Winchester, Va.: Red Moon Press, 1998),
31.
2
Robert Spiess, A Year’s Speculations on Haiku (Madison, Wis.: Modern Haiku Press,1995), 30.
3
Makoto Ueda, Modern Japanese Poets and the Nature of Literature (Stanford, Calif.:Stanford University Press, 1983), 313.
4Spiess, A Year’s Speculations on Haiku, 17.
5
Toshimi Horiuchi, Synesthesia in Haiku and Other Essays (Philippines: Universityof the Philippines, 1990), 1.
6
Makoto Ueda, Basho and his Interpreters (Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992),
123.
7Horiuchi, Synesthesia in Haiku and Other Essays, 3.
8Cor van den Heuvel, ed., The Haiku Anthology (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), 59.
9
A Hundred Gourds 1:4, accessed April 30, 2013, http://ahundredgourds.com/ahg14/haiku09.html
10
van den Heuvel, The Haiku Anthology, 65.
11Ibid, 88.
12Ibid, 6.
13Ibid, 51.
14Ibid, 59.
15Ibid, 106.
16
Frogpond: Vol XXIV No. 2 (2001), 8.
17
van den Heuvel, The Haiku Anthology, 66.
18Ibid, 269.
19Ibid, 305.
20
The Herons Nest Vol. XIV #3, Sept, accessed April 30, 2013, http://www.theheronsnest.com/page1=123.html
21
Jane Reichhold, “Haiku Techniques,” Frogpond : Vol XXIII No. 3 (2000), 68.
22
The Herons Nest Vol. XIV #3, Sept, accessed April 30, 2013, http://theheronsnest.
com/page4=123.html
23
van den Heuvel, The Haiku Anthology, 85.
24
Horiuchi, Synesthesia in Haiku and Other Essays, 7.
25
van den Heuvel, The Haiku Anthology, 212.
26
Horiuchi, Synesthesia in Haiku and Other Essays, 6.
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