‘But Living Earth Gives Me Joy’: A Review of Haiku for Me by J. Longkumer

An unusual offering from the writing space in Nagaland, a collection of haiku is a welcome departure from other forms of poetry publications. The haiku is seventeenth century Japan’s offering to the world of literature as a “terse reaction to elaborate poetic traditions,” and acquired the name in the nineteenth century. This unrhymed poetic form consists of seventeen syllables structured across three lines, following a pattern of five, seven, and five syllables (Britannica).

Haiku for Me is a deeply moving collection of verse that transports readers to a world of quiet reflection through subtle demonstrations of beauty. Overriding themes of nature, and human indifference in her exploitation pebble the pages of haiku whilst celebrating the indomitable feminine strength in earth-birthed, earth-taught art. The book is divided into three sections including “The Blues in Haiku” comprising twenty-nine pieces, “Haiku for Changki Potters” comprising thirteen from a published 2010 NEZCC project and “Lament for the Hills” with fifteen haikus that carry a predominant tone of pathos.

The contemplative locus of the first section, evident in the title, permeates through with moments of hope that at times come across like interruptions but also signal better things to come. The indolence yet heavy solitude that night affords, in the first haiku, is counterbalanced by the approaching “hint of dawn” symbolising light, renewal and new possibilities.

Turning to natural metaphors, big bold dahlias are personified and their natural habitat of sunny climes are exploited to a description that likens them to people in their ostentatious “Sunday best” putting on airs, amplifying a concern with appearances or moral superiority. The reader may ask what this outer grandeur masks. It could be a subtle reference to contemporary exhibitionism, with social media platforms pushing a culture of visibility and outward reality, while questions of inner reality remain. The third haiku reinforces these observations with an existence beyond “Photoshopped display” and “shine;”the speaker asserts, “I exist.” Similes grounded in everyday images and comforts like purani jeans and laundry support ideas of familiarity and scarred authenticity of life with wounds purged by the slow and arduous passage of time. There are instances of people celebrating the ‘juiciest’ gossip “floating around town,” careless of the veracity of rumours, in the sixth haiku. Yet, it is the silence and coldness of the unspoken, words left unsaid, in the seventh haiku, that hurts in “slow motion,” in sharp contrast with the celebratory reception to idle talk.

With the eighth haiku, the mood shifts again and the speaker totters on the edge of emotional turmoil with a self-pity suited to a chilli winter Sunday. Longkumer’s censure of society and its key players is evident through some haikus that show the frontal attack.

The clowns have all left

The balloons fly far away

Debris everywhere

The significance of clowns, tomfoolery and performance is not lost, with many actors, possibly leaders on the big stage, leaving behind only ‘debris’ after their antics. The balloons flying away emphasise the transitory nature of festivities, the aftermath being desolation.

Bible thumping saints

Loud prayers aplenty

Hearts super-glued shut

Perhaps one of the most telling tropes of Naga society is the man who holds a Bible. A much-abused figure, there seems to be cause for the criticism. The pharisaical image is hard to miss, where another category of actors plays the part outwardly, their insincerity unequivocally highlighted. The loudness of their outward expressions of holiness is juxtaposed with the silent, closed-off emotions within. This is significant with the next haiku focusing on broken promises, perpetrating the idea of insincerity and duplicity. Thus “the charade goes on.”

There is a sense of vulnerability in the portrayal of insecurity, grief and anger like “molten lava” (Haiku twenty). Longkumer’s metaphors capture the depths of human emotion, searing, volatile, and yet deeply buried, that have the potential to erupt and shape the human psyche. And yet, the verse sings praise of the simple—picnics, friendship, music and singing, and a glass or two wine as, perhaps, panacea to life’s trials. The eponymous Blue Hill evokes memories of public night bus travels that surged in the 1980s, with many a friendship forged under the cover of darkness.

The haikus speak, in snippets, of the brevity of life and human memory that emphasise the ephemeral nature of existence. The duality of memory, capturing moments of joy and pain alike, transient, yet deeply felt and impactful, serves as both a sanctuary and a haunting—"Past wounds forgotten…Hey, payback is sweet”—forgetting and yet retaining the need for retribution. Life’s checkered realities, including broken promises, insecurities, the excitement of a new dawn, melancholy, find utterance within the scope of the first section in a seamless amalgam. Several haikus straddle questions of mortality and hints of existentialism; the inevitability of death is projected despite sorrows over the silence of a “cold grave” in the fifth piece.

The heavy reliance on natural metaphors continues with arid desert imagery, sun scorching sand dunes, to imply an uneasy air of animosity and antagonism in the thirteenth piece. Subsequent pieces highlight fog, the fickle moon and changing seasons with a masterstroke of fluidity that makes it seem like all the pieces are connected. The winter haikus, in particular, echo with quiet, solitude, and introspection, marking nostalgia and unfathomable pain.

Nevertheless, “The Blues in Haiku” is far from a mere “dialogue of pain”. It is filled with ever-present “rays of hope” in human persistence and the zeal to heal and endure. Each New Year brings with it the promise of kindness that one might find just around the corner, as the twenty-seventh haiku prescribes. Each poem is accompanied by a short reflection which adds layers of insight without detracting from the readers’ right to their own interpretations.

The second section is an ode to the iconic legacy of Changki women potters, the progenitors of pot-making among the Aos. The flame of matriarchs passed along successive generations is celebrated starting with the first haiku. The practicality of the art, in a community entrenched in oral tradition, is a matter of palpable joy, “living earth” trapped between the practical actions employed by skilled hands.

Wrinkled hands working

Flawless grace in the motion

Mud flies everywhere

Pot-making is no ordinary art, requiring an intricate balance of skill, strength and patient determination. A labour-intensive and immersive process where time slips by unnoticed, it appears, this ancestral feminine “fire within” is taught by the earth itself, with whispers of something greater.

Genius I am not

I just connect to my soul

The earth binds always

While this set of haikus catalogue the physical toils of pottery, wrinkles, backaches and more, there is the inevitable reward of sweat becoming sweet (haiku seven). Like the brittle earthen pots, though beautiful and venerated, Babylonian metaphor is recalled to underline the fragility of existence in the eighth piece: “We all have feet made of clay/Beauty cannot feed.” This is as if to say physical beauty, while admired and valued, cannot fulfil practical or essential needs like sustenance, survival, or true contentment. It is the tangible and practical aspects of life that the pottery haikus seem to prize. Temsula Ao’s “The Pot Maker,” portrays the tradition of pot-making among Changki women as a communal heritage rather than a private endeavour—a cherished art meant to be passed down through generations. Passing on such practices was an obligation, jealously safeguarded by the elders of the village, with the underlying threat of ‘consequences’ for those disregarding the implicit edict.

To disregard earth

To forget our tradition

Life becomes just dust

The last piece in this section carries a gentle reminder of the importance of carrying on with the tradition of pot-making and other valued practices. The emphasis remains on the importance of staying connected to nature and rich cultural heritage. By disregarding the earth and forgetting valued traditional practices, life loses substance and significance, reduced to “dust;”respect for roots and the natural world give life its depth and purpose.

The third and final section of the collection conveys a tone of sadness at the loss of virgin country, nature in the raw, and depletion of resources, both flora and fauna. “Lament for the Hills” paints a bleak picture of what man has done to nature and the backlash he now has to suffer. The mindless desolation of nature is underlined in the first haiku with the culprit being the obvious suspect.

Bare hills silent, sad

Acts of unscrupulous men

Defeating all life

The destructive impact of human greed and exploitation on the environment causes irreparable loss to the native landscape. The title and theme of the section movingly recall the beloved “Hills called Home” of the poet’s motherland, venerated in her mother Temsula Ao’s collection of short stories. However, similarity of titles aside, if Ao had recorded stories based on the volatile social and political landscape of the troubled Ao and Naga history, Longkumer’s focus is on nature and local ecology. The latter paints a world where muddied rivers flow with alliterative finality: “Dispatching eternally/Death in its belly.” The barrenness of the earth is captured in another striking alliterative image: “Birds are not chirping/Butterflies are unknown here.” This conspicuous absence of life and vitality is a direct result of excessive human exploitation of natural resources.

The haikus in this section are a diatribe of myopic, wasteful and selfish human activities with utter disregard for the environment. There is a pointed critique of unmitigated coal mining, deforestation, and of the destruction of wildlife for game and consumption, prioritising short-term gains over long-term sustainability and ecological balance.

Mining for riches

Hope dies in toxic rivers

Children’s future spent

The unadorned irony of these lines come across heavily; man’s relentless pursuit of wealth sacrifices the future of his own generations. The once flora-and-fauna-rich hills have been depleted by human actions, rendering them unfamiliar and lifeless. The haikus echo the heartbreaking lament of the hills and give utterance to (in)animate earth as “voiceless jungles mourn” the loss of local biodiversity. Deeply emotional and poignant, they cry out in agony for the “happy endings lost” amidst the deafening silence of stillness all around (haiku six). The loss is collective, impacting the health and livelihoods of local communities. Rice fields lie in ruins; the significance of the destruction of the staple of the Naga diet is telling; it is a death knell as “barren hills crash down,” following man’s callous violations. The use of violent metaphor encapsulates this destruction: “Life ambushed for real.”

The haikus condemn the human actions that put their happiness above others; the circumstances favour the haves. The invectives against contemporary societies, marked by a wide chasm between the rich and poor, are pronounced in the verse. There is no respite for the common man while others lie comfortable in their artificial havens.

Big buildings perched high

Blocking the sunshine below

Standing tall in vain

There is a clear sense of disconnect of the natural environment and the urban world in the image of skyscrapers without the sunshine. They appear like stifling symbols of human arrogance, separate from nature. This is no man-made London, bathed in the glory of morning light, that Wordsworth stood in awe of, upon Westminster Bridge.

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning…

To be sure, there is no positive paradox in Longkumer’s haiku. While Wordsworth crafted his sonnet with the buildings as part of the grander beauty of the natural world of London at dawn, the haiku presents a clear division between the constructed and the natural world. The imagery of towering buildings blocking sunlight emphasises the oppressive nature of urbanisation and the dominance of the man-made ‘environment’ over the natural world. The focus is on the negative impact of modern development on nature and common human experience

And yet, there seems to be no end to this cycle of exploitation over successive seasons. Spring no longer has anything to offer. The absence of sustainable practices and preservation of natural resources contributes to long-term environmental harm that lead to loss of biodiversity, climate change, and ecological imbalance.

Floods, droughts, hunger, death

Life battles that we see now

Nature's payback hurts

Mother Nature, once harmed, retaliates through disasters and destruction, showing the consequences of exploitation and neglect. The vengeance of Mother Nature is seen in the depictions of drought and lashing monsoons. The final haiku sums up the harsh realities of environmental devastation and the consequences.

Scarred landscapes exposed

As nature pays back in full

Paradise no more

The piece sums up the fatalistic view of the relationship between selfish human acts and the environment, where nature’s revenge is unrelenting in the aftermath of human exploitation. The lack of redemption in the haiku leaves no room for hope or reconciliation, reinforcing the permanence of the damage. Thus concludes the final section with a serious note of caution, urging mankind to be more mindful of his actions and to respect and protect nature’s reciprocity.

Jungmayangla Lonkumer’s Haiku for Me welcomes both enthusiasts and newcomers to experience the beauty of the form, with the allure of lazy afternoon sunsets, and an appeal to honour time-tested tradition and art. The poems speak to the delicate relationship between humanity and nature; they offer an urgent cry to conduct human affairs with a healthy respect for nature, as neglecting this would lead to consequences already evident in contemporary reality. The simplicity of the haiku form belies the underlying depth of meaning; the poet uses this instrument to delivers messages with conciseness. The poems encourage the reader to look at the world with new vision. They create impressions on the soul, momentary yet impactful, that open up a world of revelations. Form and content meld in the array of Longkumer’s lines, symbolising a sense of profundity and brevity. Themes of loss, whether personal, such as the passing of a loved one, or communal, like the forfeiture of shared treasures, are tenderly mourned with subtle, poignant undertones. The collection comprises ‘well-wrought urns’ that have the potential to stand the test of time.

Dr. Maongkala Longchar

Associate Professor, Department of English

Dimapur Government College