22 August 2004. Another haiku I liked in the recentest issue of Modern Haiku is Mike Taylor's:

                                                            icadacicadacicadacicada
                                                         c

A very simple visual poem and a very conventional subject. I see two juxtaphors in it: the text as a whole as unidentified noise suddenly cohering, and the text as a summer night's auditory background that begins with an isolated cicada, then shrrrrs into the full chorus. . . . I haven't found the kind of archetypality that I feel is required of a major haiku, but if only minor, I'd still be happy to have composed it.

It strikes me, after writing the above, that perhaps Mike Taylor was not ambitious enough. Perhaps if he considered his text just the set-up or punchline of a larger haiku, he might pushed it up a level. It's the old story: perfect focus or an enriching expansion, which should you go with? I prefer the latter, unless you manage, with a maximally concentrated detail, nonetheless to capture some final largeness--as Cor van den Heuvel did with "tundra." (And, who knows, maybe a higher meaning is lurking in Taylor's haiku that I've missed.)