The Open Eye

Lenard D. Moore, The Open Eye. 30th Anniversary Edition. Eugene, OR: Mountains & Rivers P, 2015. ISBN 978-0-9896021-3-6, pp 61. $16.00 (paper).Review of Lenard D. Moore's The Open EyeThe Open Eye , which was Lenard D. Moore's first haiku book published by The North Carolina Haiku Society Press in 1985, is republished this year in a limited 30th anniversary edition by Mountains & Rivers Press. In her email of July 12, 2015 to me, the publisher Ce Rosenow states about the importance to reissue the book, "It has been 30 years since the book was first published, and I feel that the book is important in the history of English language haiku, American poetry, and African American poetry." Indeed, Moore deserves this commendation as an accomplished haiku poet. A practitioner and promoter of the genre, he was President of the Haiku Society of America in 2008 and 2009 and serves as the Founder and Executive Director of Carolina African American Writers' Collective and Co-founder of the Washington Street Writers Group. He has taught numerous haiku workshops, given hundreds of readings at schools, festivals and universities, and published four collections of poetry.The Open Eye is an eye-opening collection that follows the expressive trend of traditional Japanese haiku, leading the reader to see, hear, feel, smell and touch through the poet's seasonal experiences. It consists of 100 haiku in four sections subtitled as spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Some haiku keep the 5-7-5 pattern, revealing the poet's beginning stage in haiku writing, as in this one:Summer evening sun;a row of tombs - their shadowsreaching the ditchbankAlthough the traditional 5-7-5 pattern has helped American haiku poets in their haiku practice, its weakness is apparent in that the pattern can also encage their imagination and the haiku following the tradition can be prosy. Therefore, haiku poets have to break the fence to free their mind for a shorter form with fewer syllable counts in each line, a form suitable for the English language. In a way, this minimal form is a breakthrough for free-form haiku. There is no doubt that while maintaining the essence of terseness of haiku tradition, this free form resuscitates the language and sophisticates the way of creative and critical thinking. As an assiduous practitioner in the haiku mainstream, Moore has learned to be economical and terse in writing haiku. His usage of the English language to say more with less has enriched his haiku writing. For instance, this haiku-wind chimes:a robin stopsto listen-demonstrates Moore's ability and adaptability in haiku writing; it also demonstrates a transition of his haiku practice from following the strict 5-7-5 syllabic pattern to using a free form of a 2-4-3 pattern to mean more in a minimal way. This haiku presents a moment for a reader to apprehend, associate, and appreciate the meaning beyond the words or behind the images: the invisible perceiver, who listens to the wind chimes, notices that even a robin stops singing and is drawn to the melodious ringing sound of the chimes. The transference from listening to seeing and to listening again offers a step-by-step glimpse of human connection with nature or a moment of sudden delight. The effective use of images invites the reaction of both visual and auditory senses, and this haiku is a good example of using synaesthesia to guide the reader to watch visually, hear aurally, and comprehend intellectually. The smooth assonance produced through such words as "wind," "robin," and "listen" also helps this haiku ring melodiously.Furthermore, Moore is also a minimalist experimenting with the one-line haiku, termed by Jim Kacian as monoku in his essay, "The Shape of Things to Come," published in the autumn 2012 issue of Modern Haiku. Moore's The Open Eye contains ten one-liners, three in the summer section, six in the autumn section and one in the winter section, which can be as short as six syllables or as long as twelve. …