Three Poetic Journeys: Alternate Paths to Expanded Meaning in Life (a review article)

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring 2022): 47-60

NONFICTION AND PHOTO ARTS

Review Article

Three Poetic Journeys: Alternate Paths to Expanded Meaning in Life

• Polette, Keith. Pilgrimage: Haibun. Red Moon Press, 2020. ISBN:

978-1-947271-69-2. 94 pages, $20.00.

• McGee, Margaret D. Haiku—The Sacred Art: A Spiritual Practice in

Three Lines. SkyLight Paths, 2009. ISBN: 978-1-59473-269-0. 192 pages.

• Harnden, Philip. Journeys of Simplicity: Traveling Light with Thomas

Merton, Bashō, Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard & Others. SkyLight

Paths, 2003. ISBN-10: 1594731810; ISBN-13: 978-1594731815. 144 pages, $15.00.

C. Clark Triplett

All three of these books of poetry and poetic prose are about journeys with some common threads related to the type of poetry and the theme of a search for meaning, but each is also different in terms of what areas of experience are emphasized. All of them convey their journey through spare and unencumbered poetry and prose or poetic prose that explores such possible places and things as nature, exotic locations, fictional worlds, magical experiences, spiritual dimensions, everyday life as well as in-between spaces. Each author seeks to share something unique about life that helps the reader tune in to a deeper understanding of life. Each of these books also raises important questions for the reader such as: Where do our journeys take us? What is most important about our journey? Has anything changed as result of our journey?

Keith Polette, Pilgrimage

This review starts with the work of Keith Polette’s little book of haibun, Pilgrimage, which is perhaps the most complex and thought-provoking of the three. It is a journey that starts and ends at a rather strange place, the edge of the

desert. Although deserts are mostly filled with dead things, this desert has something to say: “Something calls to me from the edge of the desert…” (no page number). More than that, the desert even seems to sing to those who listen, “the scattered skulls of cows lowing to the wind, an arroyo mouthing dry poems, stones rising out of the sand to sing of constellations that have never been named…” (n.p.). Throughout this journey, Polette finds treasures in some of the most obscure and overlooked places. Traditionally the pilgrimage in literature is a journey into some unknown or foreign place to find a new or expanded understanding of self, others, nature, spirituality, or life itself. While Polette does travel to a number of interesting places, sometimes he finds rich meaning in the discovery of a penny or a clothesline which are as polysemous as more exotic places and things. His discussion of novel skills such Kinsugi, the Japanese art of mending pottery, the image of the kiln in “The Hollow,” and Boketto, the Japanese art of gazing vacantly into the distance without thinking, all lend themselves to multiple meanings that extend the possibilities of new perceptions of reality. This is what Paul Ricoeur described as the “surplus of meaning” in which the text escapes the finite horizon lived by its author (Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning 30). Each of these vignettes encourages an extension of thought that opens up doors of imagination and possible contexts. Polette’s vignettes include a cornucopia of sounds, sights, and images. He makes even the most mundane and easily forgetable leap off the page. “Walking to my car in the grocery parking lot, I noticed a shiny dot on the asphalt. Coming closer, I discovered it was a new penny, its copper color beaming with sun, causing it to resemble the burning eye of a tiny cyclops” (n.p). The creative use of metaphor to link the “shiny dot” to the “burning eye of a tiny cyclops” provides a new configuration for this ordinary thing so that its creative value is extended. There is a movement or interaction between something our eyes might pass over because it so common to something that captures our imagination in order to expand and re-figure the reader’s vision of the world (John Searle’s “world-toword-fit”). In this way, the author takes the reader on a journey that may have a transformative impact of possible ways of being in the world. On this journey, Polette also explores both the visual and literary artists such as Van Gogh, Blake, Frost, Twain, Kafka, Borges, Yeats, and Hemmingway. In most cases, these are imaginative strolls through the world of the artist. For instance, Van Gogh’s famous “Wheatfield with Crows” is usually interpreted in a melancholy way as a foreshadowing of his death. However, the author offers an alternative vision which is much more vital of the birthing of a great and terrible bird “whose wings will cut the air like scythes and whose heart will beat with the will of savage divinity” (n.p.). Although this is a novel interpretation, it allows for a broader alternative reading of Van Gogh’s work and life. In his elaboration of William Blake’s tiger image, Polette considers multiple interpretations including a sculpture forged by a blacksmith “who found beauty burning in ferocity,” or parts of the author’s soul, or even a divinity “who had the rawness of heart to conjure and create such a clawed creature,” or maybe to come to grips with “the tiger of time” (n.p.). As his consciousness streams back to the present,

the writer contemplates how tame modern tigers in the zoo just lie in the shade ‘like a lumpy throw rug.” In his somewhat surreal haibun “Kafka Calling,” the narrator is called on to “visit Borges.” When he says, “You are both dead,” he is told to go anyway. He then engages in a bit of magic by catching a flight of crows south, perhaps to Argentina, where he is greeted by Borges or “someone becoming Borges.” The vignette ends when he is led into a library “where books were singing on shelves.” In each of these journeys, Polette attempts to imaginatively enter the creative spirit of the artist and provide multiple perspectives on their work. In his Pilgrimage, Polette visits several in-between spaces. In “Silence” there are sounds in an old train station that would be lost in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. The silence makes it possible to hear the sound of a dripping faucet in the diner that fills the space…“and a porch swing that creaks once, because the wind being paper thin, cannot even conjure a whisper” (n.p.). The vignette ends with a haiku that is transitional from silence to everyday life:

gray morning the woodpecker wakes the day (n.p.)

The prose poem “In Transit” tells the story of uncle Joe Bone who says he was born “on a train halfway between Chicago and St. Louis.” He always felt his life was in motion, like “his legs were made of river water, the currents pulling him downstream towards a destiny that most likely would be a waterfall.” Here, as in many other vignettes, it would seem that Polette’s prose completely overwhelms his poetry, but the haiku is quite subtle, as it should be in a good haibun. They are in a way tangential to the story, often only providing a hint or key that helps unlock the deeper meaning of the descriptive prose. Sometimes it even provides a follow-up to the story. In the haibun “The Choice,” which includes a quote from Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall,” the author describes a wild cotton tree that took root just behind a rock wall in the yard and now has grown to over fifty feet. The choice is that, if nothing is done, the wall will topple. The haiku that follows is less subtle than most in the collection, but provides an answer to what choice was made and another question about why choice may have been so difficult

sound of chopping my daughter asks if trees have feelings (n.p.)

Polette’s little haibun book is fascinating and well worth reading because, in his journey, he pays attention to the great diversity of life. He is able to tune in to the mundane and forgotten things and the sights, sounds, and experiences that are often missed in everyday life. The ability to see things from odd angles and alien perspectives helps open the doors to strange new worlds, realities that are not always comfortable, what Freud called “the uncanny.” This book is a treat to the reader’s senses, offering many opportunities for discourse on the meanings of life.

Margaret D. McGee, Haiku—The Sacred Art: A Spiritual Practice in Three Lines

Haiku—the Sacred Art is included in a series of books on art and spirituality. The journey for the writer of this book begins with a “haiku moment” when “the mind stops and the heart moves” (3). This kind of experience happens when a person is tuned into a special way of seeing and there is a connection between human experience, nature, and the unity of God's creation. In this journey, there is a kind of perceptual shift which is also a religious or spiritual experience that expresses “a human longing that lies deep within all great faith traditions: the need to find our place in the world, to feel in our hearts our relationship to each other and to all of creation” (6-7). It is the capture of these special perceptual moments in writing, however, that is transformative, “that make you feel alive and whole—moments that make you aware of holiness—in a way to relate to the Creative Spirit through the ‘now’ of this moment” (8). Margaret D. McGee teaches the reader the basics of writing haiku, but this learning process also becomes a spiritual journey because “as you enter this book, the images and connections that come out of your imagination will be expressions of your creative self, showing that you are made in the image of the Spirit that creates all things” (7). So, the central theme of this book is that the process and practice of writing haiku is a way of spiritual living. McGee uses religious language and symbols to articulate the experience of writing haiku. It is like taking the sacrament—taking the bread and wine is an experience of joining with others in a sacred activity. Haiku is not simply an idea or technique. It is also participation in a special experience so that, in the writing, the author becomes a conduit that passes along the mystery of life that the Spirit gives—“the language of creation” (10). The journey of haiku is a moment in time in which the writer taps into the essence of creation and viscerally feels and touches a mystery. This experience is captured in a quotation from R. H. Blyth: “A haiku is…a hand beckoning, a door half-opened, a mirror wiped clean. It is a way of returning to nature, our cherry blossom nature, our falling leaf nature, in short, to our Buddha nature” (12). So, for McGee, haiku is clearly a way of connecting the human experience to nature or creation in a way that creates something more than the two, “a deeper unity that lies beneath the surface of things” (14). Taking time to look at the world and to really pay attention to the theater that is played out every day is a way of celebrating and acknowledging the Divine, according to McGee. “Become a spectator in the greatest drama ever played—the drama of the open leaf, the rising bread dough, the drilling woodpecker, the chasing dog, the cloud that crosses the moon. Then in a few words, give the moment its due by writing a simple three-line prayer” (28-29). So, haiku is a form of prayer that reflects back like a mirror God’s created world—away from the often-narcissistic world that everyone lives in and which seems to permeate everything. McGee makes a case that haiku is a way of being grateful: “O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.” Human beings tend to want to shape and

revise everything according to their own needs. Haiku looks in a different direction: “The relief I feel in turning my focus outward comes from not only escaping the confines of my hungry little self, but also in finding my true self, transformed in the essence of the world around me” (30). This does not mean that human imagination is cancelled out, rather it is enhanced by being tuned in to the broader creative Spirit. So, a posture of gratitude is more likely to lead to a deeper sincerity for the truth and reality that confronts in our present experience of creation—a way of striving for “makoto: the sincerity, or poetic truth, for which a haiku poet strives” (33). McGee does spend some time discussing early forms of poetry in Japan, such as tanka, that preceded the development of the haiku. The tanka that is translated in five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 sound symbols (on) which are somewhat similar to English syllables. In the ninth through the twelfth centuries, poetry was widely practiced at the Japanese imperial court, and almost everyone at court wrote poems about the human condition, politics, religion, love, and everyday life. This common practice led to competitive poetry, which in turn included collaborative efforts that emphasized tanka’s two- part form in which one composing the first three lines of 5-7-5 and the other responding with the last two 7-7 lines. This two-part poetry was called tan renga and later became an important part of social occasions as a diversion from everyday life. Later, this short poem was extended into a longer poem called a renga which repeated the five line several times in the 5-7-5-7-7 pattern. “It was in this lively milieu of writing poetry as a social game that the peculiar character of haiku began to take shape growing out of the requirements for the renga’s three-line starting verse, called the hokku” (46). Since the hokku became the launching point for the rest of the long poem sometimes poets would compose the hokku ahead of time hoping to have their verse chosen for the beginning of the renga. The recognition of the hokku as an independent form of poetry evolved gradually particularly as Bashō, a respected teacher and popular renga leader, published hokku in his travel journals in the seventeenth century. It was not until the nineteenth century that Masaoka Shiki proposed treating the hokku offshoot of the renga as a separate form which he named haiku. It is in the chapter dealing with the development of haiku that McGee discusses the difficulties and rewards of sharing haiku with the rest of the world particularly in its English forms. For instance, the 5-7-5 sound pattern in Japanese has no equivalent. Early on there was no effort to follow the 5-7-5 pattern using free translations that they thought would sound more natural, but in the end the poems did not seem much like haiku. Eventually, translators decided to simply equate one Japanese sound symbol with an English syllable. This created a structure that was easy to understand in English, creating a new form that eventually caught on. Of course, translations from Japanese are still often difficult, and some places and season words lose their rich religious, poetic, and cultural meaning in the process. However, believes this process has been important because “(i)n sharing haiku with others, we discover that we are not alone in our feelings, but that sorrow, joy, and all that comes between are part of the universal human spirit” (51). It is here that she shares some of the very basic

elements of writing haiku and concludes this section by reminding the reader: “The crux of writing haiku is recognizing what is right in front of you, writing it down, the stepping back to see all that was hidden before you took the time to really look” (56). According to McGee there is an interesting relationship between the moment of personal insight in writing a haiku and the universal aspects of time and place. “Over centuries of verse writing in Japan, a body of recognized season words developed, becoming a standard part of the haiku form. These special words and phrases called kigo have been collected in seasonal almanacs over time and continue to be used in writing haiku, particularly in Japan. These words remind readers of a particular time of the year of experiences and events that evoke deep feelings and longings sometimes from the distant past. This is why the “haiku moment” is so fertile because it can trigger a whole universe of memories and personal feelings. Even small things like an ornament on a Christmas tree can bring multi-layered associations of childhood or collection of family rituals. “By situating a haiku in its own season, we can tap into the depth of generations that are contained in the essence of one moment, at the same time opening a door for feeling from the past to come into the present and touch us again” (69). Writing haiku not only brings a universal sense of time where God is felt and known, it also reminds us that we are tied to sacred places in our lives that define who we are and what is important to us. According to McGee, “If we can better understand what it is about these sacred places that gives meaning to human life, we are better able to offer back that meaning in our haiku” (73). Any place where and individual feels a sense of awe or wonder or recognizes God may become a sacred place. Some sacred places are associated with such deep memories that they easily evoke emotions that are close to the surface, “especially feelings of deep sorrow and comfort” (72). Some places are very special over time because they bring a sense of belonging, eventually becoming places that feel like home: “Over time, the places where we have a sense of belonging, a sense of home, come to hold feelings that can stretch from sorrow to joy and all that lies between” (74). Home is perhaps the most sacred place of all because offers a universal anchor that grounds a person no matter where they may travel on a journey or wander in life. Even in the most alien places, the poet may look out at a place or thing that evokes a memory or image of place that brings a sense of wholeness: “A haiku grounded in place can reach us and share the ties that connect us to the earth, to each other” (77). McGee draws inspiration for her haiku writing from spiritual practices used by different faiths that help focus her awareness. One such practice that is discussed in some detail is one in which Jewish rabbis and their disciples chant scripture in the form of prayerful meditation called haga. Haga turns an encounter with scripture into an experience of deep feeling and meditation that often includes weeping out of sadness for the world or sometimes out of pure joy because you have tapped into your own heart and God’s heart as well. The word itself can mean many things such as “moaning” or “roaring” or “groaning,” which reflects a diversity of feelings as one meditates on scripture. In Christianity, the

desert ascetics carried this practice forward in what they called the lectio divina, meaning “holy or sacred reading” (85). This was a way of meeting God in scripture and experiencing God’s presence. This is not a form of analysis or exegesis of scripture, but rather leads to an encounter “that is active, immediate, and engaged” much like the experience in writing haiku. It is because it is focused on language or words that it connects well with haiku writing. The process of lectio divina includes four steps: lectio (reading and listening), meditation (meditation), oratio (prayer), and contemplation (contemplation). The author, who is a spiritual leader in the Episcopalian church, uses this process to write haiku based on a contemplation of scriptural passages and associations and images after meditating and prayerfully reading the written haiku. Ultimately, the process of following the lection divina as an inspiration for haiku was to carry the words of scripture out those around you: “When you carry the words of sacred texts out into the world with you, and look with attention, you may see the words reflected back to you in the common events and objects of daily life” (94). McGee stresses the importance of writing and sharing haiku in a group. Although the result of writing in community is not always great poems, it does allow everyone to participate without intimidation. It is also a demonstration of the group’s words coming together to see what happens. Quite often the result is unexpected and the opportunity to share creative moments in which doors of personal connection and understanding are opened that were not possible before. “Linking to other voices leaves room for serendipity, and serendipity opens a door for deeper sensations and feelings to come out and play” (116). Developing the sacred art of haiku requires an awareness of what is going on in the world out there right in front of you every day: “A haiku is an expression of openness to God’s creation, just as it is” (138). But this is something that must be developed as a habit. Writing haiku every day helps to form patterns of awareness and attention that show the way to experience the wonder and joy of creation. When you decide to write a haiku every day all you really have to do is pay attention to something and give a written response. Not all of the responses will be great poetry, but some will find some treasures and over time you will collect many memories and recorded events that will be markers in your life. McGee suggests that one way to start a haiku habit is by integrating it into a habit you already have, such as reading or a daily devotional or even prayer. Another way is writing haiku around holiday themes or a particular season such as autumn or Thanksgiving. McGee provides a number of helpful books to help deepen your understanding of haiku. Some of the suggestions include Hiroaki Sato’s Bashō’s Narrow Road: Spring and Autumn Passage which renders many of his haiku with beautiful illustrations by master painter Yosa Buson. The author also mentions R. H. Blyth’s four-volume work Haiku reveals his deep love of haiku. Several books that will help sharpen skills for writing haiku include The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku by William J. Higgenson with Penny Harter, and Lee Gurga’s Haiku: A Poet’s Guide. The student who is learning to write haiku should read as many of the old masters as possible as well as sharing your haiku with others who share their work with you, “a circle comes around and we inspire each other” (142).

For those who are interested in using haiku as a form of spiritual practice, as does the author, “[l]istening to the haiku of others and sharing your own on a common spiritual theme opens multiple pathways for its meaning to enter your heart” (143).

This is a very helpful book for those beginning the journey of writing haiku, it also has useful hints for those who have been practicing haiku for some time. What makes this work unique is how McGee makes haiku a form of spiritual practice. Applying it as a form of prayer and meditation, writing haiku becomes a way of learning how to be more alive and aware in the moment and tuning into God’s presence in creation. Sometimes as the practitioner goes looking for God’s presence in the world through the writing of haiku and “sometimes it seems the Spirit comes looking for me” (95). As one begins to practice haiku daily, it eventually becomes a spiritual habit that honors the sacredness of everyday life.

Philip Harnden, Journeys of Simplicity: Traveling Light with Thomas Merton, Bashō, Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard & Others

In Journeys of Simplicity, Philip Harnden travels vicariously through the lives of some well-known writers, spiritual seekers, naturalists, literary characters, and others. He focuses on what these pilgrims took with them and, in some cases, what they left behind. Mostly, these are stories of unencumbered living in which the travelers considered only what is most essential in life. Each fellow pilgrim is “traveling light” and the poetic prose focuses on how graceful each lives even when they have only the necessary baggage. Like the ancient middle-aged man from China named P’ang Yūn, they live life “like a single leaf” (1). So, this is a book about choosing priorities and what is most important in life. With the few things they carried with them, each travels with focus and intention “from place to place, day to day, from birth to death” (Back Cover). In each of the vignettes, the author provides a brief glimpse of each of the forty travelers with a description of the traveler and their and itinerary and then a list of things they brought with them “in a battered leather bag” (45). Some of the descriptions are pretty simple and sparse, but they make a significant point: “He traveled light, and there was nothing—except friendship—he wasn’t prepared to leave behind” (34). The poetry or poetic prose is as spare as the belongings each traveler brings. Although the vignettes are light, they are meant to be read slowly and pondered because they raise questions about life and what direction it is going. As the author indicates, it is “a journey of lightness and light” (1). Most of the fellow travelers in this book are committed to lives that go beyond the ordinary even though they live simple lives. Such interesting travelers as Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, who was a social activist and scholar, was ironically committed to living a sparse existence in a “small unadorned…cinderblock building with cement floors” (6) where he cut his own wood and prepared his own food on a Coleman stove. His personal effects included: a Timex watch, a pair of dark glasses (tortoise frames), two pairs of bifocals (plastic frames), two

leather-bound breviaries, one rosary (broken), and one small icon of wood (virgin and child). Merton’s way of life spilled over with irony because the Trappist way was a vow of silence, but his words and thoughts were heard all over the world. He traveled light throughout life until his death and then his light shone in so many corners of the world. There are forty travelers in all who are committed to a more graceful way of life that leaves behind most material things. Some of the travelers are much better known than others such as Henry David Thoreau, “the American Transcendentalist, writer, and apostle of the simple life” (24). Although Thoreau is best known for his writing about the essential way of life, he was best know in his own time for his pencils. He helped his father create one of the finest pencils of his time. Interestingly, on a canoe trip which was unusually overloaded, it was “noteworthy for what it omits—a tool of both his trades: a pencil” (24). The other, less encumbered Thoreau lived in a ten-by-fifteen-foot cottage on Walden Pond. He only had three chairs: “’one for solitude, two for friendship, and three for society’” (28). Some of the most intriguing travelers in Harnden’s list are the ordinary, unassuming character’s such as Sue, an impoverished but skilled and gracious cook in M.F.K. Fisher’s 1942 book about wartime food shortages How to Cook a Wolf. “She spent less than fifty dollars or less on food. Yet her salads and stews were renowned because she blended them so skillfully, with such thought, and she cared enough to share them with her friends” (40). Sue was the epitome of what it means to travel light—to know what is essential and to make the most of it. At Sue’s table there was:

A few plates no knives no electricity only one candle whether two or eight at table mysterious perfume of bruised herbs sage gathered in the hills knew a hundred different kinds (41)

Harnden’s list includes many other fictional characters including Father Terrence, an Irish Catholic priest and Cistercian monk on the coast of Australia in Bruce Chatwin’s book The Songlines. He lived years in a humble hermitage “cobbled from corrugated sheet” who exclaimed: “Isn’t it wonderful? To live in this wonderful twentieth century? For the first time in history, you don’t need to own a thing” (34). There is also the initially reluctant character, Bilbo Baggins, grandson of the Old Took and diminutive hero of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit. When something tookish overtakes him, he suddenly decides to leave all his comforts and in his hobbit hole and join thirteen dwarves on a great adventure. There is Ishmael, the narrator of Herman Mehlville’s Moby Dick, who cannot wait to “get to sea” when life gets difficult and grim. He takes only the barest of essentials including “a shirt or two…stuffed in an old carpet bag” (53). Then

there is Bill Wasowich, a backwoodsman and born-again Christian, in John McPhee’s book The Pine Barrens who lives the sparest yet most fulfilling in a “(s)turdy saltbox in the woods perhaps eighteen feet square clean within, almost empty” (65). All of these characters, among others, live their lives in the most basic way and yet are able to seize the moment and “kiss the joy as it fly’s by” (Eternity, William Blake). Harnden includes a number of personalities who lived extremely humble lives but had an enormous impact beyond any particular time and culture. Travelers such as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who, on the eve of his 1932 fast to rid India of Untouchability, “joked that he possessed few clothes and fewer teeth” (98). His earthly possessions included: two dinner bowls, a wooden fork and spoon, a diary, a prayer book, eyeglasses, three porcelain monkeys, watch, spittoon, letter openers, and two pairs of sandals. There is, of course, Jesus of Nazareth, whose life and teachings are the foundation of the Christian faith. When he sent forth his disciples, he said, “Take nothing for your journey save a staff. No knapsack, no bread, no money, not two coats, be shod with sandals. Go preach, heaven is at hand, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils” (qtd. in 69). Others, who may not be as well-known as Gandhi or Jesus still had a significant influence on people’s lives such as Dorothy Day, devout Catholic “holy troublemaker” and founder of the Catholic worker movement. She lived among the urban poor encouraging Christians to works of mercy to feed the hungry, cloth the naked, give water to the thirsty, and care for the sick and to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” (86). All of these travelers gave up much and advocated love in action in spite of their poverty. This is a book that considers what is important in life as it looks at the journeys of some people who are well-known and some who are not so wellknown. It is a book that ponders the mystery: “We take delight in things; we take delight in being loosed from things. Between these two delights, we must dance our lives” (4). The book is meant to be read slowly as many questions are raised about what is important in life and what guides the way. The poetry in this work is less than spectacular, but it is meant to be spare and almost skeletal because it is about unencumbered traveling. As the author seems to indicate, it is more like writing on the back of an envelope, a kind of scribbling of a person on the way. Although the writing is meager, it raises deep questions about what is important and whether we have the necessary lightness and the indispensable light.

Alternative Paths to Expanded Meaning in Life

These three books emphasize different aspects of the journey whether to visit new and unusual places, finding spiritual awakening or expanded meaning, or discovering what is most important in life. Sometimes people notice things that have been overlooked before and discover a new significance or beauty. For Bilbo Baggins the journey stands for adventure and all of its possibilities in The Hobbit, but perhaps more about life and its dangers in The Fellowship of the Ring:

The road goes ever on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet And whither then? I cannot say. (58)

Whatever the emphasis, it seems that each author expects a transformation of sorts before the end of the journey even if it is only a matter of appreciating another culture. It is interesting that a pilgrimage or journey means a separation for a period of time and then a return to the everyday world of home. Sometimes a journey results in a change in identity or attitude because of some experience. For religious pilgrims, there is often an expectation of some spiritual encounter that brings change. Christian priest Frank Fahey writes that a pilgrim is “always in danger of becoming a tourist” (218) or vice versa since in his view travel always upsets the fixed order of life at home. The pilgrimage or journey is a rather common theme in literature as found in Canterbury Tales or Pilgrims Progress. There are different motivations in literature for these journeys. Sacred travel usually includes a search for deeper spirituality or ultimate salvation, but sometimes there may be more practical reasons such as healing or forgiveness of sins. In other cases, a pilgrimage may be linked with travel for overtly secular reasons. In some literary and religious works, the pilgrim is not traveling by choice and sometimes is not welcome in the places visited. There is in some literature an inevitability a about the journey. The term sojourner, for instance, refers to someone who does not belong, a foreigner, alien, stranger, or exile. For example, during the exodus, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years without a home. “We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all out ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow” (I Chron. 29:15). Literary works about sojourners are often books about slavery or disenfranchisement such as The Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth or the The Sojourner by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Interestingly, Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, uses the “motif of exile” throughout his critical writings. By this he means that we are never at home in the world because nothing is ever settled including and specific meaning or any final foundation, metaphysical certitude, transcendental signified or stable presence. According to Richard Bernstein, “Derrida seeks to show us that we never quite are or can be at home in the world. We are always threatened by the uncanniness of what is canny; we are always in exile—even from ourselves’ (Bernstein 179). He comments that it would be easy to relate this motif to Derrida’s background as an Algerian Sephardic Jew who “has always worked on the margins of (‘Greek’) philosophy and metaphysics” (Ibid). However, there is another underlying ethical-political concern that makes him feel so unsettled about the world around him. It is his continuous concern about how

any archē or fixed boundary can become a means of exclusion and exile for the contaminating Other. So, there is no boundary that cannot be questioned. What may be more important for our discussion is Derrida’s use of the term’s “canny” and “uncanny” in his discussion of exile and exclusion. He borrows these terms from Freud, whose 1919 essay “The Uncanny” (Das Unheimlich) discusses the two antithetical German words heimlich and unheimlich (literally “from home” and “not from home” or “familiar” and “not familiar”). So, typically the word “uncanny” has been used to mean something that is strange, unfamiliar, or frightening to us. Interestingly, however, Freud also argues that uncanny has, in certain situations, been used to mean “something hidden inside the home” that was never meant to come to light. Later on, Freud discusses how these two opposite words whose meanings tend to intertwine in the un in unheimlich is a reflection of repression and what is hidden is really something familiar. What is frightening, according to Freud, is when early thoughts from childhood “slip out” and we experience anxiety. Ray Malewitz at Oregan State University explains that, for Freud, the uncanny seems to be related to beliefs that we have repressed as adults. We cover them up because, as children, they seem wrong. We want to seem rational and in control of the world around us. It would be embarrassing to discover that our childish perspective was more real than the one we currently have. For Freud, the uncanny is the dread we feel in situations in which our childish fantasies and fears appear more real and more true than our adult worldview (Malewitz 1). The point of this interesting study for Derrida is that meaning develops in the direction of “ambivalence” and in different contexts can lead to exclusion, violence, and condemnation. So, we must always be on the lookout and critical of the language of fixed boundaries and exact borders. Therefore, man is born in exile and so must never cease questioning the Aufhebung, the reconciliation oppositions and differences of meaning (Bernstein 179). For this reason, postmodern man is aways on the way and the journey never ends. There are other post-foundationalist philosophers, however, who accept the fact that there is a surplus of meaning in texts, but that behind the text there are always possible ways of seeing or understanding the world and human life in new and refreshing ways. Paul Ricoeur, in particular, considers Freud in a different light than Derrida. “Ricoeur builds a theory based on Freud’s ‘double action in the interpretation of dreams” (Triplett and Han 113). As is emphasized in Freud’s discussion of the uncanny, there is both a showing and hiding element in each text and so, for Ricoeur there is an interpretive process of unmasking and retrieving: “Hermeneutics seems to me to be animated by this double motivation: willingness to suspect, willingness to listen; vow of rigor, vow of obedience” (Freud and Philosophy 27). While Ricoeur’s critical element (suspicion) is important for challenging many of the same regimes of power and textual idolatries as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, it is his hermeneutic of retrieval that opens up the text: “By thinking through restrictive categories of convention, language, and political ideologies, retrieval fleshes out creative new meanings in opposition to stodgy, reductionistic portrayals of reality” (Triplett and Han 114).

Although Ricouer understands the dynamics of exclusion, violence, and disenfranchisement, it is not an endless journey. There seem to be alternate pathways on the basis of an “ontology of the not-yet” (Thistleton 351). In his Rule of Metaphor Ricoeur discusses how metaphoric discourse can lead to opening up possibilities beyond the actual world. It brings the language of both cognition and mood together as a lens for seeing the human experience in a new way. Borrowing from Monroe Beasley, Ricoeur understands metaphor as “a poem in miniature” which allows for a productive use of ambiguity that opens up the meaning of words when literal meanings would not (Interpretation Theory 4651).

In the three poetry books reviewed, it was discovered that the use of haiku, haibun, or free verse transforms the most mundane and ordinary things. The ordinary world comes to life or, in some cases, may even be viewed and described as sacred. Through these literary journeys, the writers attempt to awaken the reader to what is most important in the world and in life that is often missed in the clutter of human existence. As one of the authors reminds us, even long dead things can bring music to our ears if we just listen. The journey of writing poetry, according to these writers, opens the mind and the emotions to new imaginative worlds of meaning. Such journeys never leave the reader unchanged so that even home seems different than it was before. This does not necessarily mean that we are lost. We are reminded of this in the new Lord of the Rings series, The Rings of Power, when the hobbit Poppy Proudfellow repeats in her walking song:

No matter the sorrow, No matter the cost, That not all who wonder or wander are lost. (“This Wandering”)

The journeys in the works reviewed in this article are journeys of discovery. They are for readers who are in search of new or expanded meaning about self, nature, the sacred or even a deeper understanding of the everyday life. There are rewards for those who open their minds and senses to the world around them and “listen to the language of creation” (McGee 10).

Works Cited

Bernstein, Richard J. The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998. Fahey, Frank. “Pilgrims or Tourists?” The Furrow, vol. 53, no. 4, April 2022, pp. 213-218. Triplett, C. Clark, and John J. Han. “Unmasking the Deception: The Hermeneutic of Suspicion in Lois Lowry’s The Giver. Worlds Gone Awry: Essays on Dystopian Fiction, edited by John J. Han, C. Clark Triplett, and Ashley G. Anthony. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2018, pp. 111-121. Ricoeur, Paul. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and Surplus of Meaning. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976.

_______. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970. “This Wandering Day.” Tolkien Gateaway, https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/This_Wandering_Day, 13 Nov. 2022. Accessed 18 Nov. 2022. Thistleton, Anthony C. New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings Part One: The Fellowship of the Ring. Nerw York: Ballantine Books, 1973.