Parts of the Moon: selected haiku & senryu 1988-2007, John O'Connor (Post Pressed, 2007) ISBN 978-1-921214-22-6.

Sandra Simpson

John O'Connor is one of this country's best haiku poets and, of the two or three others who share this distinction with him, is the only one who strives for a deliberately urban, not to say gritty, flavour to his poems. Down-and-outs, hookers, the homeless, barmen, night-time cabbies - the people most of us either don't see because we're tucked up safely in our beds or choose not to see - all have a place in O'Connor's poetry.

Joe Bennett's unswerving advice to writers is: Tell the truth. And truth is what shines out of these poems, even if, at times, it is an uncomfortable truth.

street-kids the chill

Urban reality isn't necessarily what we expect of haiku, but O'Connor's observations add an extra dimension to a common experience, which is something we do expect of haiku. In this sense, his is another country.

Yet, being the intelligent writer he is, there are also plenty of haiku among the 120 offered to satisfy traditionalists.

half light
& down the canyon
a pebble falls
In 2001 this haiku by O'Connor was selected as the best in a Frogpond international edition. To my mind it is one of the best haiku I have ever read and is as gorgeous now as the first time I saw it:
dusk -
up to my ears
in birdsong
In 2006 he completed the rare double of winning both the open poetry and haiku section of the NZPS competition (and also took third in the haiku contest). The winning haiku is a common-enough image, whether in gardens or wilder territory, yet he has pulled off the trick of making us see it anew.
                wax eye
on a twig
                without breaking it

The "construction" of the poem on the page is very deliberate, and in Parts of the Moon O'Connor addresses "technology and verse" which goes beyond intriguing line arrangements to include symbols as text. He presents a handful of "graphic" haiku that owe as much to their shape or the symbols as their words, and follows it up with an essay on technology and verse which helps explain where (and why) he's going with this (an essay which appeared, more or less, in a fine line in March 2007).

Cover art is by Eion Stevens - a Dunedin Public Art Gallery exhibition over the summer featured paintings by Stevens with responses from poets, including O'Connor - and the book has been produced by an Australian small publisher.

Despite having doubts about the inclusion of a couple of poems, my only real quibble is the size of the type - 10 point is just too small for haiku. The poems drown on the page, while impact is also lost with four poems per page, although that perhaps has more to do with financial reality than poor design.

Parts of the Moon is a timely collection from a master craftsman. The introduction says O'Connor intends to return to haiku after a self-imposed hiatus. Let us hope he is true to his word - we will all be better for it.

Madras Bookshop in Christchurch will despatch Parts of the Moon around the country. Send orders to 165 Madras St, Christchurch, phone 03-365-8585 or go to www.madrascafebooks.co.nz

 

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