set fair the pop of the dubbin tin
The haiku above, one of the April contingent in The Haiku Calendar 2022, still very much worth buying from the incomparable Snapshot Press, here, has been talking to me for the past week and a half. Few haiku as short as this – just nine syllables – do as much work.
I picture the poet/protagonist, having consulted the weather forecast, down on his haunches to polish his faithful pair of sturdy black boots, for a walk into the countryside, maybe, or out to the coast.
The familiar sound as the tin-lid’s catch releases is immensely satisfying. Chard is as observant and excellent a haiku poet as anyone writing today, so he knows that the ‘pop’ needs no qualifying adjective, and his choice of the rather old-school ‘dubbin‘ is inspired.
It’s also pertinent to note that Chard didn’t write ‘set fair the dubbin tin’s pop’. His wording enables a double surprise: of the pop itself, and then that what causes the pop is something as apparently trivial as opening a tin of shoe polish.
Except that it isn’t trivial, and it shifts the focus: what we see is an act born of tradition; of someone with standards to maintain, standards no doubt instilled in him as a boy. The day is ‘set fair’, so boots need to be looking their best.
On a haiku by Simon Chard
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Responses
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I absolutely love this haiku and like you say, it stays with you. As it’s not the main April poem, but on the reverse side of the calendar where the font is quite small, it could be overlooked. I’m so glad you’ve featured it – it deserves many readers.
Julie x-
Yes, it’s lovely. I forgot to add that just the opening phrase of ‘set fair’ is marvellous in itself.
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Made me think of the start of the football season in the days of leather boots.
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Yes, indeed, Rod. By the way, I very much like your two poems in the latest Poetry Salzburg Review.
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Thanks.
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Thanks for the explication. As an American I would’ve struggled to figure out what the hell a dubbin tin is or what “set fair” means.
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Ah, it’s always good to know which words travel and which don’t – I had that with ‘milkfloat’ a good few years ago.
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[…] written about the clarity and excellence of Simon Chard’s haiku before, here, and I make no apology for doing so again. Over the last few years, his haiku have been as […]
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