Ray Rasmussen
In the Eye of the Beholder
A Commentary on David G. Lanoue’s haibun “The News”
Photo illustration by Ray Rasmussen
David G. Lanoue, a prominent poet, translator, and educator, has published numerous books and articles about haiku, exploring its form, techniques, and the philosophy behind it. In addition to his scholarly work, he is also active in the North American haiku community—as a cofounder of the New Orleans Haiku Society, an associate member of the Haiku Foundation, and a recent president of the Haiku Society of America. Lanoue is especially known for his extensive work on the life and poetry of Kobayashi Issa, one of Japan’s most beloved haiku masters. He maintains a searchable archive of Issa’s poems (The Haiku of Kobayashi Issa), and several of his books are either about or inspired by the Japanese poet.
The News
by David G. LanoueI watch no news, which means, no bad news. No massacred children in Africa … no beheadings in Syria … no missile strikes, anywhere, described as “surgical.”
I watch, instead, a fountain in a green park. I savor, instead, the garble of water meeting water.
It’s Easter Sunday in Bulgaria, a week after America’s Easter. “Hristos voskrese,” the hotel breakfast lady said this morning, and taught me to say, handing me sweet bread and a blue egg: “Christ is risen” …. an old headline.
I walk through central Sofia, practicing my new phrase, “Hristos voskrese!” I try it out on an old, stooped-over Bulgarian man, who mumbles something back at me in Bulgarian, his frank smile missing teeth.
The sky’s a deep blue. The fountain flows and bubbles. I sit on a cool, wooden bench under a tall, budding tree, and I watch.
No news is good news.
that Bulgarian girl’s
pink dress
I would cling, tootranslucent nails
the light
of her phonemale gaze
sharks glide past
the bar
A central theme of this haibun is that mindful presence can soften the impact of modern media’s relentless negativity. Lanoue grounds the prose with clear, tactile details as he takes a walk in Sofia, Bulgaria: a fountain in a green park, the sound of water meeting water, and an Easter breakfast of sweet bread and a blue egg. Brief interactions further situate him in Bulgaria’s culture—a breakfast lady greets him with “Hristos voskrese!” He practices the greeting and shares it with an old man who mumbles an unintelligible response. Beneath a deep blue sky, he settles on a wooden bench under a budding tree and watches (aka, practices mindfulness).
Without the series of three haiku, the prose alone could sustain the haibun, perhaps closing only with a single haiku that reflects Lanoue’s experience. I’d guess that most readers would like the warmth of that simpler piece. But a more demanding reader like Ken Jones, former editor of cho, might caution us to consider the distinction between a walk and a pilgrimage. ’The former rambles from here to there, this and that may be observed, but so what?” It’s a question that everyone aspiring to write good haiku would do well to ask themselves.
The three haiku that complete the piece produce the “so what?” Together, they produce a sharp, step-by-step tonal shift—from the gentle observations while “walking” to a more dramatic, darker tension of “sitting to watch.”
In the first haiku, the choice of the word “girl,” rather than woman or young woman, and the phrase “I would cling too” are likely to evoke an uncomfortable reader response.
The second haiku suggests the girl is a young woman with painted nails, perhaps texting on her phone, all signaling a mature worldliness, a woman who perhaps would draw the gaze of many men. At this point, Lanoue’s entire focus has shifted the focus of the piece entirely to the girl/woman.
The third haiku—”male gaze / sharks glide past / the bar”—was a surprise to me. It associates the male gaze with sharks and prey, and marks a larger, darker, less ambiguous shift. Lanoue has entered the confessional genre at this point. In labelling other males as sharks circling their prey, he’s either projecting his own male psyche or generalizing what we males know about ourselves: some (many, most?) men are frequent gazers, lusters, peepers. A few are active predators, and unfortunately, far too many enact their predatory instincts. My partner, Nancy, said that she’s been aware of the male gaze from her early school days, particularly those gazes held so long that they are intrusive and can convey a sense of threat. Can we not conclude that bad news not only arrives from external sources, but is also held in the mind?
Adrienne Rich argues that poetry is more than comforting art; it must witness, challenge, translate experience, and mobilize conscience rather than remain an isolated aesthetic object. In this sense, Lanoue’s piece is a polemic statement asking us—whether male or female, young or old—to focus on one of the dominant themes in our generation: male-female sexual politics. It invites us as males to examine both our urges as gazers and our behaviours as active predators, and, as females, to examine their sense of being the gazed at and assaulted prey. In short, in the space of three short haiku, Lanoue has put the issue in the forefront of his haibun.
But for his twice-repeated admonition that “no news is good news,” Lanoue does not tell us what to think. He walks. He notices. He reports using mostly descriptive detail and a strong narrative flow. But the haiku “sprinkled in” sharpen the prose passages with vivid images, inviting readers to enter the work and reflect on their own lives. “The News” also challenges aspiring writers to ask themselves, “Am I sharing full mindfulness or a simplification that always leads to good endings, endings that avoid the shadows we carry within.”
References:
Lanoue, David G. “The News,” in My Journal with Haiku Sprinkled in (pp. 235-236). (Function). Kindle Edition. (Printed with permission).
Jones, Ken, a comment in “Ken Jones on Haibun: An Interview with Jeffrey Woodward,” cho 18:3.
Rich, Adrienne, Poetry and Commitment, W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.
Simonsen, Holly, Poetry, “Politics, and the Polemic: Adrienne Rich as Guide, Hayden’s Ferry Review,” taken March 14, 2026.
About the Author
Ray Rasmussen has edited various haibun journals, and his work has been published widely. He lives with his partner Nancy in a mixed hardwood forest in Ontario, Canada. They enjoy reading aloud together, writing (him), fabric arts (her), photography, bicycling, canoeing and hiking. Ray’s haibun collection, Landmarks, is available on Amazon.com. His haibun blog is “All Things Haibun.”