Disclaimer: I believe haiku is the most abused form of writing in America.
A co-worker sent me a pair of so typical, so bad haiku. The better of the two reads:
Riding in downpour Bicycle has no fenders Who needs a bidet
Um, gee, that’s so evocative. I responded with a link to the Bicycle Haiku page. It has a variety of bicycle related haikus, some very good. While I was there I (hey it’s the nature of the web) clicked through to a couple of interesting sites.
On a cross country trip in 1979 Kevin Kelly kept a scetch book journal with daily ink sketches and haiku. You can click through a selection of them. I found many delightful sketches and poems among the selection.
Wishing to reflect a bit more on haiku I visited notes on 5-7-5. Glynne Walley presents an argument that English language haiku based on the 5-7-5 model make as much sense as Japanese sonnets. It goes on to present this example of true-to-haiku-spirit English poem:
Twilight on the frozen lake North wind about to break On footprints in the snow Silence down below.
It’s from Bob Dylan’s “Never Say Goodbye”. I think he’s right.
People write …