You, then

There were thirty-five students in the class; thirty-six, counting Freddy, who took the last seat in the row by the back wall, behind Susan. There were no windows, and the walls, except for the green blackboard, were covered with cork. The city noises were shut out completely. The students, mostly Latino and blacks, were silent as they watched the teacher write Haiku on the green board with a piece of orange chalk. The teacher, a heavy-set and bearded man in his late forties, did not take roll; he had just waited for silence before writing on the board.

"Haiku," he said, in a well-trained voice, "is a seventeen-syllable poem that the Japanese have been writing for several centuries. I don't speak Japanese, but as I understand haiku, pronounced ha-ee-koo, much of the beauty is lost in the translation from Japanese to English.

"English isn't a good language for rhymes. Three-quarters of the poetry written in English is unrhymed because of the paucity of rhyming words. Unhappily for you Spanish-speaking students, you have so many words ending in vowels, you have the difficulty in reverse.

At any rate, here is a haiku in English."

He wrote on the board:

The Miami sun,
Rising in the Everglades - 
Burger in a bun.

"This haiku," he continued, "which I made up in Johnny Raffa's bar before I came to class, is a truly rotten poem. But I assure you I had no help with it. Basho, the great Japanese poet, if he knew English and if he were still alive, would positively detest it. But he would recognize it as a haiku because it has five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. Add them up and you have seventeen syllables, all you need for a haiku, and all of them concentrating on a penetrating idea.

You're probably thinking, those of you who wonder about things like this, why am I talking about Japanese poetry? I'll tell you. I want you to write simple sentences - subject, verb, object. I want you to use concrete words that convey exact meanings.

I know you Spanish-speaking students don't know many Anglo-Saxon words, but that's because you persist in speaking Spanish to one another outside of class instead of practicing English. Except for giving you Fs on your papers, I can't help you much there. But when you write your papers, pore - pore - over your dictionaries for concrete words. When you write in English, force your reader to reach for something."

There was a snicker at the back of the room.

"Basho wrote haikus in the seventeenth century, and they're still being read and talked about in Japan today. There are a couple of hundred haiku magazines in Japan, and every month articles are still being written about Basho's most famous haiku. I'll give you the literal translation instead of a seventeen-syllable translation."

He wrote on the blackboard:

Old pond.
Frog jumps in.
Water sound. 

"There you have it," Mr. Turner said, scratching his beard with the piece of chalk. "Old pond. Frog jumps in. Water sound. What's missing, of course, is the onomatopoeia of the water sound. But the meaning is clear enough. What does it mean?"

He looked around the room but was unsuccessful in catching anyone's eye. The students, with sullen mouths and lowered lids, studied books and papers on their armrest desk tops.

"I can wait," Mr. Turner said. "You know me well enough by now to know that I can wait for a volunteer for about fifteen minutes before my patience runs out. I wish I could wait longer, because while I'm waiting for volunteers I don't have to teach." He folded his arms.

A young man wearing cut-off jeans, a faded blue tank top, and scuffed running shoes without socks, lifted his right hand two inches above his desk top.

"You, then," the teacher said, pointing with his chalk.

"What it means, I think," the student began, "is that there's an old pond of water. This frog, wanting to get into the water, comes along and jumps in. When he plops into the water he makes a sound, like splash."

"Very good! That's about as literal an interpretation as you can get. But if that's all there is to the poem, why would serious young men in Japan write papers about this poem every month in their haiku magazines? But, thank you. At least we have the literal translation out of the way.

Now, let's say that Miami represents the old pond. You, or most of you, anyway, came here from somewhere else. You come to Miami, that is, and you jump into this old pond. We've got a million and a half people here already, so the splash you make isn't going to make a very large sound. Or is it? It surely depends upon the frog. Some of you, I'm afraid, will make a very large splash, and we'll all hear it. Some will make a splash so faint that it won't be heard by your next door neighbor. But at least we're all in the same pond, and - "

There was a knock on the door. Annoyed, Mr. Turner crossed to the door and opened it. Fredy leaned forward and whispered to Susan. "That's some pretty heavy shit he's laying down. D'you know what he's talking about?"

Susan shook her head.

"Us! You, your brother, and me. What's the other word mean he keeps talking about - onomatopoeia?"

"It's the word for the actual sound. Like splash, when the frog jumps in."

"Right! See what I mean?" Freddy's eyes glittered. "You and me, Susan. We're going to make us a big splash in this town."

- from Miami Blues, Charles Willeford