A haiku for you

Not subject-object Not hero not narrative A forest not trees

My haiku exists on a rhizome, because I found the traditional hierarchal structure of the haiku to be oppressive. I wanted the form to actively work with the content of the poem, to not be inert. Deleuze and Guattari's rhizomatic hierarchy positions power on a plateau, an orientation to relationships that interrelates to the Allen and Anzaldua essays. 

I utilized Allen's criticism of the Westernized narrativity imposed on tribal stories (literary conventions, archetypes, chronology) as a driving force for the poem. Anzaldua's breaking down of the subject-object relates to the problematic reality of traditional narratives of culture, particularly as they relate to women. The repetitious negation works within my own Westernized language to acknowledge my participation within a culture as an Anglo-American, while at the same time recognizing its limitations (both in limited scope and in its imposing of limitations on my own ability to wholly think outside of culture.) The poem is an attempt to simulate synchronicity by disrupting narrative. The beatific revelation at the end of the poem "A forest not trees" works off of Anzaldua and Allen's ideas, reimagining multiplicity and unification without traditional structures that limit and isolate.