Kat Lehmann

Two Favorites: On Structure

An Exploration into Haibun’s Fourth Element

Photo by Alain Pham on Unsplash

Editor’s note: This is the first in a periodic series of essays in which writers offer two favorite works—one of their own and one written by another author—as starting points to explore the various approaches that writers and artists take to create distinctive haibun, tanka prose, and haiga.

A current interest of mine in haibun craft is how the construction of a haibun affects meaning. I want the structure of my haibun to feel intentional and inseparable from its content—risen organically, like a volcano that creates its own island.

I recently watched a video of pianist Peter Bence plucking the strings inside his piano and whacking the piano frame for rhythm—essentially playing the whole instrument. As haibun poets, we are given a trio of instruments that we can arrange to create our songs: title, prose, and haiku. In English-language haibun, the title-paragraph-haiku order of elements is common. I conceptualize haibun as a balanced triangle of these elements, and the meaning of the haibun lives somewhere in the center of that triangle. If the prose, for example, is considerably long or weighty, the triangle might feel unbalanced. If the poem leans too heavily on the prose for its imagery? Unbalanced. If the title does not shift or expand the meaning of the prose and haiku? Unbalanced. Not fully wielding the title for maximum impact feels like I have been given three crayons to color my landscape, but I am using only two.

If my elements are balanced but the haibun remains unsatisfying, I explore whether the work would benefit from a different structure. The placement of haibun elements dictates the number and location of resonances between them in the same way the location of musical notes shapes a song’s silence. These gaps and leaps sing with meaning in the reader’s mind. Many times a different arrangement of my instrument trio is needed to achieve a better expression. 

What structure sets the proper travel, dynamics, and epiphany between the elements as the reader moves along the arc of a haibun? Answer: the best structure for that particular haibun. Structure, then, can be considered the fourth element of haibun. Change the structure and you fundamentally change the resonances between the other three elements and how the haibun delivers or doesn’t deliver.

With this interest in haibun structure as my vehicle, I voyaged deep through historical haibun—early contest winners, journal issues, and personal offerings—to see if I might fall in love with something new-to-me. My travels led me to a new favorite by Owen Bullock, “Brogo, Bega,” which I pair with a recent work of my own, “Thoughts a Second Before the Terrible Triad Elbow.” Both haibun use a unique stream-of-consciousness presentation and pacing to describe a non-linear time scale from impressionistic brushstrokes, during what might be a long weekend (Bullock) or an altered “frozen time” event that occurs in a fraction of a second (mine).

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Brogo, Bega

By Owen Bullock, for Barbara Curnow

We’re going to Bega.

Broga Bega Broga Bega Broga Broga Broga Bega.

We’re staying at Barbara’s house.

    sunset—
    swathes of orange lichen
    discarded by angels

Slow. Beside the drive, a wallaby with a bushy tail.

    the crackle
    of walu—
    we’ve arrived

A dwelling, full of silence. Socked feet find the meditation room.

    in the house
    of characterful doors
    a framed photo
    of a characterful door

    the profile
    of the Rayburn’s flu
    reminds me…

Father’s pot of tea steeping on the shelf above the hob.

A framed jigsaw ornaments the bathroom; orange & yellow tiles, black & white parrots.

A fireplace worthy of a great hall, well-prepared, flares swiftly.

perusing someone else’s books
the cuckoos
in us

“My life is a creative act.” – Ram Dass.

Staying in someone else’s house is like looking at a portrait for a long time.

    the candle’s shadow
    flat
    against the wall

    view of the bush
    no more
    overlit corridors

    straight eucalypts
    warm warble
    of kookaburra

I want to touch the quiet. Sometimes it seems as though everyone’s had a more troubled life than me; nothing attacks me from the past. A bird hovers among ruminations. It’s our nature, too, to look for food, to go where the work is—what we’ve been discussing in our couple of days away from routine.

“Suffering lets us see where our attachments are—and that helps us get free.”

We’re noticing the physical frustrations of growing older.

“Aging represents failure in our society, so each of us looks ahead and sees inevitable failure.”

Driving out on a corrugated road. Wind-shorn flowers; coastal rosemary; sand forms based in erosion. From the headland at Bermagui, peering through the wind.

We freeze on the darkened road home, a wombat waddles across it, and stops. We soak him up.

Trees down the valley sway slightly.

    the peace
    of the mountains
    talking is profane

    morning breeze
    only red parrots
    chatter

    losing at scrabble
    wanting to get rid of
    some "I"s

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A Little Background on “Brogo, Bega”:

A description from the author: “This long-form haibun celebrates place, including the bush, a sense of retreat, and the experience of inhabiting someone else’s living space to write within.” 

Bega (and nearby Brogo) is in the southeast of New South Wales, Australia. According to Wikipedia, Bega is based on the Aboriginal words for “big camping ground” and “beautiful” and is about a three-hour drive in good traffic from Canberra, where the author was based at the time of the haibun’s writing.

Overall Arc and Structure:

The first three lines of melodic, alliterative prose echo the title and emphasize the excitement over this getaway, like a child who sings the name of the destination all the way there. 

The initial description of sunset as “swathes of orange lichen discarded by angels” shows we are entering a magical place. The mention of a “wallaby” and “walu” (walu is an indigenous word for peeling bark) further sets the location and points to notable glimpses of this land that is remarkably tranquil.

Next, we zoom through an image of nested doors on doors to find the comforting warmth of a wood stove. Here, the fragment descriptions are glances around the house—puzzles, colorful tiles, flames, and books. In the middle of our tour of images, we are told, “Staying in someone else’s house is like looking at a portrait for a long time.” Through the lens of Barbara’s home, we see Barbara.

After more descriptions of this scene in the Australian bush, we return to the desire for quiet. But there is meaningful discussion to be had first: “it’s our nature … to go where the work is”  and “suffering lets us see where our attachments are” and “aging represents failure in our society.” These are the epiphanies that happen during long, late-night conversations with good friends. I felt I was in the room with them, well past bedtime.

The “corrugated road” shows us that our time at Barbara’s house is ending for now. There is aging here, too, seen in the surroundings. We are awash with more impressions from the journey home, including a wombat that we appreciate at a slower pace now. Perhaps we can learn to connect more deeply than before. The haibun ends with the author changed by the experience, wanting to “get rid of some ‘I’s” and continue to carry the serenity.

The Interplay of Haiku & Prose:

Throughout the haibun, the final haiku in each series leads directly into the next section of prose. Reading through the haiku to the adjacent prose, they “arrived … [at] … a dwelling.” This is not a repetition of the poetry and prose elements, but rather another layer of the storytelling. 

the crackle
of walru—
we’ve arrived

A dwelling full of silence.

This structure continues. The wood stove reminds of … a father’s pot of tea. They peruse books … to find a Ram Dass quote. The musical warble of a kookaburra … leads to a desire to touch the quiet. The juxtaposition of birdsong with quiet made me consider the way that sound can be part of a peaceful silence. In the last series of haiku (three poems), we see that the author is finally touching this quiet, birdsong and all.

The Role of Structure:

The structure of “Brogo, Bega” is integral to the experience of exploring Barbara’s house with the author. We meet Barbara, who is never described except through the view of her home, through which we see her clearly. We tour the series of snapshots, collected phrases, and insights, along with the wonderful leaps between them that give space for meaning to rise and breathe. The images might seem disjointed at first, but as we stand back we see how they stipple a cohesive picture. If the haibun were constructed more traditionally, with one paragraph followed by haiku, we would lose the rich interplay of these glances of sight and mind. Much of the magic would be lost. As it is, we come to know Barbara, her surroundings, the getaway, and how the experience transforms the author, presented as an abundance of impressions and empty spaces created by the haibun structure.

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Thoughts a Second Before the Terrible Triad Elbow

By Kat Lehmann

I haggle with physics, try to rewind time. At the river while pregnant, a male goose flaps a warning when I walk too close to its spring nest. We squawk at each other. Just another foolish hover, a rising cloud. I slip between molecules and try not to land. I fall in an icy river while trying to cross it. Let me stay a sky, paint a modest Sistine ceiling. Let me buffer this skeleton with flesh, dwell in the painted rafters. Please don’t let me land like a Slippery When Wet sign. The goose and I retreat to our mated pairs: me to the house, and he to his eggs, each fighting for what is precious. I plead with the ground to soften the slap of gravity. As a child, I pedal down a set of stairs and fall on my lip. I eat ice cream for a week. My thoughts tumble, a Keith Haring dancing man pedaling the air, coyote bicycling over the canyon. I am pulled from the frigid river and have to walk a mile back. I try harder, call levitation into being. The ground moves closer. The children are watching. Maybe I can stay here, my name written in the air, where the dangers are only windmills.

    goose rising 
    I dwell in the house
    of gravity

    spring cloud and I fighting windmills

    sky ceiling
    this precious tumble
    into my name

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A Little Background on “Thoughts a Second Before the Terrible Triad Elbow”:

In May 2020 I came indoors from our vegetable garden to make pizza using the sourdough starter a friend had given me. This was early in the pandemic, and yeast was nearly impossible to procure. The kids had a new hoverboard and were eager for me to try it, beckoning me from the kitchen. In a few seconds and without thinking, I stepped onto the hoverboard, realized this was decidedly not for me, and tried to step off. At this point, the hoverboard flew out from under me, and I landed on my elbow. So much for pizza.
 
A “terrible triad elbow” means there are two broken bones and a dislocation of the joint. It’s about as fun as it sounds, and nearly always leads to surgery. I was lucky (define “luck”) that these were stable injuries and would eventually heal with therapy. 
 
As the expression goes, time stood still during the accident. I remember being in the air, my mind delivering entire thought processes and memory arcs in that fraction of a second. The haibun explores these flitting free-association thoughts in which the mind flashes a life review.

Overall Structure:

I conceptualize the structure of “Terrible Triad” as an “embedded” haibun, in which three overlapping haiku are scattered in the prose, word by word (or phrase by phrase), and also provided at the end. The poems could be left as a subtle treasure hunt for the reader, like an exercise in “found haiku” that completes the haibun. I used the “embedded” technique previously in my haibun “Revelations” (Blo͞o Outlier Journal, 2021) to semi-hide an additional senryu. The embedded words (shown in bold italics in “Terrible Triad”) are positioned to create the interior haiku. That is, the words “goose rising I dwell in the house of gravity” occur in the prose, in that order. 
 
When I sent this haibun for publication, each embedded haiku was written in its own typeface and also provided for the editor to consider. In my submission, I wrote that it was acceptable to me if the haiku were left unstated as something for the reader to discover. After some discussion, Frogpond haibun editor Judson Evans and I decided to keep the haiku listed below the prose, as I had submitted it, and make everything the same typeface, as shown here.
 
The Prose of Falling:

In addition to the buried haiku, stories from four different time periods are interwoven in the prose. Each memory regards a notable fall.
 
Childhood: “As a child, I pedal down a set of stairs and fall on my lip. I eat ice cream for a week.” This happened in front of our apartment building when I was about nine years old. I had been riding my Kick ‘N Go, but what verb applies to those? I recall the swollen lip, ice cream, and rocket pops.
 
Twenties: “I fall in an icy river while trying to cross it … I am pulled from the frigid river and have to walk a mile back.” I slipped on a snowy log during a winter hike in New England. Thankfully, I was extracted from the river almost immediately. It took some time in the car with the heaters blasting to fully feel my fingers.
 
Thirties: “At the river while pregnant, a male goose flaps a warning when I walk too close to its spring nest. We squawk at each other … The goose and I retreat to our mated pairs: me to the house, and he to his eggs, each fighting for what is precious.” Ever been attacked by a goose? This fall was rather frightening in my rounded state.
 
At the moment of the poem: “The ground moves closer. The children are watching.” Between flashbacks, I thought about my children and the impact my injury would have on them. I didn’t want them to worry. So much for being a cool mom!
 
The prose includes additional phrases about hoping to stop the fall. I plead with physics, gravity, and the ground. I try to rewind time and slip between the molecules, remain in the sky, buffer the fall, oh, please don’t let me land.
 
Cultural images of hovering and levitating flooded my mind too. A Keith Haring dancing man. A Slippery When Wet sign. The roadrunner-hungry coyote levitating above the canyon before the plunge. Do I, too, look like a cartoon character, legs spinning? Is this how Michelangelo felt in those hours near the Sistine Chapel ceiling? If I have to go through this, please let me bounce softly. These thought associations are a memory freefall that parallels the physical fall.
 
The Interplay of Haiku and Prose:

The paragraph contains four stories and three embedded haiku. The prose has mostly stories of falling, and the poems occur in the air to convey a feeling of a racing mind. The greatest challenge in writing the haibun was entwining the prose fragments while not disrupting the interior haiku. I try to be rather strict with my haibun to ensure that the title, prose, and haiku resonate but are not redundant. This presented a special challenge when writing “Terrible Triad”. Basically, I had to use words from the prose to write the haiku while saying something different from what the prose stated! As an added constraint, I wanted to keep the embedded words in sequence such that the haiku could be read top to bottom. 
 
I worked on the haibun for months, trying many different approaches and structures that might allow this weaving of multiple pieces of prose and haiku to communicate both disorienting leaps and a cohesive, stream-of-consciousness whole.

Haiku from the Air:

goose rising
I dwell in the house
of gravity

This haiku laments the contrast between the flying goose and earthbound me. Oh, to have such wings!

spring cloud and I fighting windmills

“Fighting windmills” is a reference to Don Quixote. This haiku indicates the hopelessness of trying to resist the powerful “giant” of gravity. Not even clouds are immune to its force.

sky ceiling
this precious tumble
into my name

The sky is a ceiling because I can rise only so high before tumbling into my identity as an earthbound animal.

The Role of Structure:

The prose and poems of “Terrible Triad” are presented as fractured but can be mended as my elbow eventually did. The haibun structure reinforces the temporal and spatial dislocation of being in the air and prompts the reader to feel ungrounded too. The arrangement of images and the need to bridge them are as disorienting as the feeling of falling. These two elements are given context by the title as “the second before the terrible triad elbow.”

If this were presented in the typical structure, the result might not resonate as strongly on an intuitive level. Even if the reader does not follow every fragment and reference, the flitting nature of the thoughts is recognized. The italicized and bolded words may stand out at first as only a subliminal irregularity that later coalesces into haiku. We have fallen into a heap, along with the poems.

What other life experiences, like falling, are repetitive such that the circumstances and details change but the feeling remains the same? We want to stop the inevitable but are unable to do so.

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Conclusion

I chose two haibun that are favorites due to their atypical structure that complements the content and amplifies the reader’s experience. What other structures might have been used to convey these events and enhance certain feelings? How does pacing, resonance, and meaning shift in your own haibun with a different presentation of elements? Structure is the composer of our musical offering that arranges the silences as well as the notes. It designs the negative space that creates contrast with our crayon colors. What can we express with the in-between? Structure, as the fourth element, is one way to explore this in our haibun.

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Notes:

“Brogo, Bega” originally appeared Haibun Today, Volume 11, Number 2 (June 2017). It was republished in Work & Play (Recent Work Press, 2017). Reprinted with permission of the author.

“Thoughts a Second Before the Terrible Triad Elbow” originally appeared in Frogpond 45:1 (2022).

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About the Author

Kat Lehmann is a founding co-editor of Whiptail: Journal of the Single-Line Poem, an associate editor at Sonic Boom, and the author of three books of poetry. She currently serves on the panel for The Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards. Kat lives on the edge of a Connecticut forest, where she is captivated by the grandiose within the minute. www.katlehmann.weebly.com.