NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
An independent small press poetry review
 JÖRGEN JOHANSSON: MUD ON THE WALL River Man Nya stadens torg 1b 531 31 Lidköping Sweden ISBN 91 976430 0 9 email the author        Web design by  This page last updated: 10th December 2007. |
JÖRGEN JOHANSSON: MUD ON THE WALL | |
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MUD ON THE WALL is a deceptively simple presentation of haiku by Jörgen Johansson. The haiku contained within the pages are enhanced by an uncluttered presentation and by the presentation of written images with as little intervention by the author as possible. dusk — father and son scything the meadowThis haiku works well by allowing the reader to piece together an imagined image that evokes Robert Frost's poem, MOWING: my long scythe whispering to the ground and also links through the male lineage, a passing from father to son, with little intrusion by the writer, bar the actual placing of images. insomnia... a rabbit changes shape on the ceilingThis particular haiku fuses the humour of a child's game and the very adult word insomnia. The night terrors of the adult and child merge together in this well-crafted image. Johansson also presents fragments frozen in time as here: Estate sale — the rake lies untouched among brown leavesThis cleverly hints at both the decay of fall, where the leaves fall and are being gathered, but also at the abandonment of the task. The reader is left curious as to what has happened here, linking back to the first line — is the property for sale a large one, suggesting at servants or hired help? The open-ended nature of these sketches hints at an underlying greater knowledge: knowing exactly how much to show and how much to leave to the reader. Again the reader sees this here: windswept morning mackerel scales on the fisherman's handsThis haiku hints at far more than what appears on the page. Connections drawn by the reader, could be to the proverb: mackerel sky, mackerel sky, not long wet, not long dry, and linking this to the fisherman becoming part of what he does in a physical manner, as the scales of the fish morph to his hands. No doubt at all, Johansson does haiku very well. | ||
| reviewer: Barbara Smith. |