Now or “Now”, What’s in a When?

In Japanese Haiku, Yasuda talks about the seasonal word coming from the Renga, he talks that the hokka needed to be referencing now—the season they were in. 

That linked the poets’ experience as they made linked verses—they shared “now” as a frame of reference. 

“Now” is always an interesting thing for poets as we will often write about now later. Using the present as inspiration, but adding time to reflect. 

But there is a certain romantic ideal involved with this season observation—that the poem has more weight that one that was written later, after reflection. 

That “spontaneous overflow” all over again. 

Words have power—sure, but does the generation of those words also have power? Would a poem be the same, composed about war, but not in war? About love, not in or out of love? If the Irish shoreline weaves into a poem, does the distance between it and where I am sitting change the verses? 

Or do we simply search for the true names of gods that only have one name: the final product?