Remembering Kylan Jones-Huffman

Kylan Jones-Huffman was a passionate haiku poet whose work I had noticed in print and online. Though I did not know him personally and never met him, his poems spoke simply, directly, and eloquently, and he contributed poems and understated commentary to online haiku discussion lists. After his name, his email signature sometimes included the following phrase, attributed to the Japanese haiku master Bashō: “Is there any good in saying everything?” Unfortunately, he has left this world not saying nearly as much as we would have wanted. Kylan’s senseless murder has made the war in Iraq personal and starkly real to me, and has also prompted me to revisit his poems. Rereading his haiku in the context of his death emphasized the lesson, for me, of the value of biography in appreciating poetry. Knowing more of his story gives his poems an added depth and authenticity. The poet’s name underneath a haiku surely acts as its “fourth line” by providing added context to many readers. But now he is gone, and I regret that I will not have the privilege of corresponding with and meeting Kylan, and will know him only by his poems. I am thus reminded of Paul O. Williams’ classic haiku, written for the late Nick Virgilio. I think of Kylan as I read it again:

gone from the woods

the bird I knew

by song alone