Life Lines by Dejan Pavlinović,

Publisher: Udruga Tondak, Pula,

Croatia 2024

Artful Usage of words & Contrast Vibrations​

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Dr Pravat Padhy reviews Life Lines by Dejan Pavlinovic. 

Dejan Pavlinović is an accomplished Croatian haiku poet. His artful usage of words, contrast vibrations between the fragment and phrase and linguistic brilliance are worth noting. The collection ‘Life Lines’ is divided into four sections, ‘Life Lines’, ‘Breath of Air’, ‘Coexistence’ and ‘Breaking Waves’. The English translation of haiku into Croatian and Japanese reaches a wider audience. Nina Kovačić, in her poignant ‘Foreword’, creatively explores the essence of the sequence of chapters. She remarks:

 

“The conceptual structuring of chapters, as well as the initial and final haiku in them, are intriguing and innovative. There are four dominant lifelines on the palm:

 

the basic lifeline, the line of the head, the line of the heart, the line of destiny. Thus, this collection is divided into four sections… Most haiku are printed in the basic font, but exceptionally, twelve haiku that address the loss of parents are printed in italics. …In this way, Pavlinović discreetly conceived and created a conceptual text whose content expands and extends.”

 

Dejan is concerned about the health of his parents. He is emotionally awakening and immensely grieved by the loss of his mother:

 

life lines . . .

my aging hands

down father’s ribs

 

*

mom’s diagnosis . . .

the same drive home

even longer

 

*

mother’s death . . .

a butterfly settles

on my coffee cup

 

Ezra Pound defines an image as “an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time,” and “a form of superposition…one idea set on top of another. It is the presentation of such a ‘complex’ instantaneously which gives that sense of sudden liberation; that sense of freedom from time limits and space limits; that sense of sudden growth, which we experience in the presence of the greatest works of art.” Interestingly Dejan excels in his visual imagination with striking images of ‘compare and contrast’:

 

so many people

but nobody there –

graveyard visit

 

Referring to the living creatures such as cicadas, ants, bees, spiders, mosquitoes, butterflies, crows, dogs etc. indicates his sensitivity to his surroundings:

 

breath of air

a petal turns into

a butterfly

 

This reminds me of the famous quote by Bruce Ross in his preface in Haiku Moment “The movement from a special attention toward a non-human nature to some kind of union with that nature is a central facet of Japanese culture.”

 

At times, he is philosophical and tries to discover the depth of the magical mystery of nature. I think Dejan masterfully unfolds the art of yugen in haiku and discovers the mystical insights:

 

cicadas silent . . .

I become aware

of the world

*

winding road

the thought of what’s behind

keeps me going

 

Dejan is skillful in the use of imagery with brilliance. He entangles the sense of seeing and hearing by implying subtle synesthetic association:

 

first blossoms

stronger than sight

the sound of bees

 

Dejan often amplifies the images by weaving with a sense of antithesis and leaving white space (ma) for the readers to unroll the beauty beyond the words.

 

short days . . .

the silence in the waiting room

lengthens

 

*

moving clouds

even now standing so still

that tree afar

 

Robert Speiss said: “A true haiku is an experience experiencing itself.” I feel the poet deeply fathoms the miracle manifestation of nature and merges them into the horizon of the Zen spirit:

 

sea horizon

the iris of her eye

splits in two

 

*

breaking waves . . .

the sun

reshaping itself

 

Greg Piko writes, “The result can be particularly moving when an image from nature is set beside an image that depicts human behavior.” Dejan chisels it perfectly with subtle sensuality and human psychology:

 

warming the cold moon

with my breath . . .

he sees through me

 

*

the wind

combs her hair

to the other side

 

His haiku exhibits a sense of creativeness (zoko) and he discovers the sky “shaping a girl’s smile”:

 

cumulus clouds –

the sky is shaping

a girl’s smile

 

In the following haiku, the poet visualizes drops of water falling from a seagull's wings. I could sense a harmonious effect (toriawase) in the haiku.  It manifests a different dimension of poetic ingenuity and elegancy (miyabi) by embracing the vastness of the ocean.

 

the rain

from a seagull’s wings

once more

 

It is interesting to see it closely parallels Busan’s wonderful art-of-words: “Evening wind:/ water laps/ the heron's legs” (Tr. Robert Hass) and to an approximate extent Basho’s haiku: “spring rain …/ through the wasps’ nest/ a leak in the roof” (Tr. Susumu Takiguchi).

 

Dejan realizes the momentary nature of worldly things. This adds a different dimension to the haiku tradition of Zen feeling:

 

running

down the street

yesterday’s snowman

 

Dejan demonstrates the art of reinforcement and enrichment of images and unveils them in places like superimposing shadow in darkness in “moonless night.”

 

a street lamp

casts a shadow for this

moonless night

 

Personification is sparsely seen in haiku, but the poet follows it in a few places: “stars uncovered/ a cloud hesitates/ then moves on.”

 

Rough patches of uncertainty and conflict besiege the present world. Dejan condemns war and violence. He humbly wishes mankind to embrace the world peace and brotherhood: 

 

weight of war

conscience bows the head

closer to the ground

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Mary Oliver said, in A Poetry Handbook (San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994, 106), that poetry “began through the process of seeing, and feeling, and hearing, and smelling, and touching, and then remembering—I mean remembering in words—what these perceptual experiences were like.” I think Dejan aesthetically illuminates the art of haiku with metrical exhibition and poetic prowess in this beautiful collection.