Noddy: A Book Review

Noddy by Robert Spiess. Modern Haiku Press, 1997; 72 pages, 5½ by 8½ inches, paperback. $9.00 postpaid from the author at P.O. Box 1752, Madison, Wisconsin 53701 USA [address no longer correct].

From the pen of Modern Haiku editor Robert Spiess comes a quirky collection of haiku, senryu, and other short poetry called Noddy. This is not the Noddy character popularized in England by children’s book writer Enid Blyton, although the whimsy of Blyton’s character may add overtones to Spiess’s book. Rather, these poems are autobiographical, with “noddy” being a name for the poet himself, his “digs” being Spiess’s own “small, very basic dwelling,” all “tumbly” with a pleasant clutter of books.

         Spiess says in his introduction that “The ‘noddy’ who appears in many of the poems seems to some to be an eccentric, even a sort of booby,” so Spiess is being self-deprecating—or speculating on a perception some people may have of him. He adds, however, with hopefully greater accuracy if we see the “noddy” character as Spiess himself, that “others wonder if he [noddy] is not fulfilling his life by according with the two sides of his nature: that of the student of both the manifest and the transcendent, and the humorist.” Perhaps both perceptions of “noddy” as Spiess are true (the yin/yang symbol on the book’s cover is a clue). Certainly Spiess is a humorist, and in this often wry collection the “noddy” poems (although they make up only a portion of the book) are a crazy sort of wisdom, most fully apprehended as humor—as part, it would seem, of an elaborate comedy. 

        Adding further elaborateness to Spiess’s private yet usually accessible domain is his serendipitous arrangement of the book’s poems in conjunction with the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching. He explains that all sixty-four poems matched up naturally with the names of the hexagrams. Many pairings are remarkably appropriate, as with the following haiku assigned to the “earth” hexagram:

                mud in their bills,

        a pair of swallows glide through

                the shed’s broken pane (p. 2)

One poem appears per page, along with the corresponding hexagram and its name. In citing further poems, I’ll include the hexagram’s name.

        As with Spiess’s previous book of poetry The Cottage of Wild Plum (1991), most poems in Noddy follow what are usually symmetrical syllabic “architectures,” such as the following (listed by increasing length and complexity): 3-6-3, 5-5-5, 5-6-5, 5-7-5, 3-4-3-4, 3-5-3-5, 4-4-4-4, 8-8-8-8, 2-5-2-5-2, 3-3-3-3-3, 3-3-4-3-4, 3-4-3-3-4, 3-4-3-4-3, 3-4-4-3-3, 3-6-3-6-6, 5-5-5-5-5, 1-4-1-4-1-4, 2-3-2-3-2-3-2, 6-6-6-6-6-6-6, 2-2-1-1-2-1-3-1, 2-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-1, 2-2-2-1-1-1-2-3-1, and other patterns (some of them rhyme, although not obtrusively). A few of the three-line poems are irregular in syllable structure, but most fit particular patterns, in contrast to the great variety of patterns of free-form and organic poems Spiess publishes in Modern Haiku. Perhaps Spiess sets himself the formalist challenge of arbitrary yet usually symmetrical patterns for his own poems as a way of deepening his interest in haiku after five decades of reading and writing in the genre. Yet pleasingly, none of his syllabic forms ever seems forced or padded in sacrifice to the chosen form’s rigidity. Here are two favorite selections—the first syllabic, the second nonsyllabic (note the slant rhyme in the first example, and indeed, note all of its mellifluous sounds):

                the day’s haying done—

        in silence we watch fireflies “fellowship”

                glide over the lawn (p. 13)

        a cicada rasps again—

            and again the baby “accord”

                  shakes her rattle (p. 8)

And here are four examples of longer syllabic forms, these being wonderfully delicate, rich, and perceptive:

        field

              of stunted hay

        sharp

              grasshopper feet

        crawl “treading”

              my sweaty back (p. 10)

        so light

              only the kitten’s

        pawprints

              allow the snowfall “influence”

        to count (p. 31)

        moonlit stream

              here the mayflies

        lived the day “the marrying maiden”

              for love alone (p. 54)

        a willow

              beside the marsh

        the fragrance

              of its catkins “dispersed”

        fills the skiff (p. 59)

        Back to the topic of autobiography. While the preceding examples are surely faithful vignettes from Spiess’s personal experience, they are not strictly about himself—not as are his self-aware noddy poems. The noddy poems, once the reader perceives the autobiographical thrust, seem to work on a different level, like an inside joke. Through the device of the “noddy” character, perhaps we see Spiess himself in ways we have not seen before:

                cicada’s evensong

        the noddy being cleansed “folly”

                of sin and folly (p. 4)

        someone

              wants the digs

        picked up—

              the noddy

        replies

              it’s home when “standstill”

        tumbly (p. 12)

                snail on a sedge—

        so closely noddy peers “withdrawal”

                it pulls in its horns (p. 33)

        winterizing

              the tumbly digs

        sisyphean “exhaustion”

              the noddy’s work (p. 47)

        ten

        years’

        zazen

        yet

        noddy’s

        monkey-mind

        ever “discipline”

        leaping (p. 60)

                ninety-five degrees—

        noddy’s silent words of grace “inner truth”

                before a cold beer (p. 61)

        There’s something of Han-Shan in “noddy,” and perhaps Spiess’s Wisconsin cabin is like Cold Mountain. Maybe Spiess is a haiku lunatic, and happy to proclaim it:

        gathered to feed

              and tipping down

        the mallards are “gathering together”

              mooning noddy (p. 45)

        ha! ha!

        tumbly

        yard’s

        now

        become

        all

        moneywort “richness”

        gold (p. 55)

        Perhaps “ha! ha!” is the last word on noddy—the way to revel in these poems, poems from a crazy cabin, whose chortling Zen humor serves up a carefree, humble enlightenment. We should all wish for this lightness, this understanding, to see what “noddy” sees.

               we are not apart—

        your land’s haiku poets “tranquillity through harmony”

               sing within my heart (p. 11)

Postscript

It occurs to me that my neon buddha character, the star of more than 2,000 short poems I’ve written (mostly unpublished) is not far removed from Bob Spiess’s noddy. Spiess’s character is clearly autobiographical, whereas mine sometimes is, sometimes is not. Perhaps the neon buddha is also like R. Crumb’s Mr. Natural. At the very least my character cannot resist puns and wordplay, or at times just dances with the surreal. But it repeatedly loves to play, and I think that’s the main train it shares with noddy.

—11 February 2024