2009-03-29

Refrigerator Haiku

Don't know who created this or where I found this, but I love this.

4 comments:

M said...

My friend claims to have created this haiku. I am doubtful.

Ciera said...

My friend made it. I was sitting right next to him and gave suggestions :P

Anonymous said...

Bullshit

It's the most known haiku in the world.

Area 17 said...

It's very funny, but not sure I'd want to read it several hundred times like a bone fide haiku.

I do like it, but anyone who says Haikus [sic] or haikus [sic] will not probably be into haiku.

Haiku is singular and plural in Japanese, just as sheep is in English.

Now it would be funny if everyone here insisted on writing and saying sheeps [sic] for the rest of the year. ;-)

And don't get me started on the urban myth that any old thing, however bad, is haiku (or haikus [sic]) if done in seventeen syllables. The Japanese language doesn't have alphabet and syllable systems, and are read out in 3-6 seconds flat with kire; kireji; and often kigo.

snowing
through the blizzard
particles of me

Alan Summers
Competition winner for international Haiku Calendar.

On exceptions it's possible to do a seventeen syllable English-language haiku, but only rarely e.g.

another hot day
a leaking water pipe stopped
by the jackdaw’s beak

Alan Summers
Award credits:
Honourable Mention, 14th Mainichi Haiku Contest (Japan, 2010)

I could still successfully edit it down to a normal haiku e.g.

another hot day
the jackdaw’s beak
stops a leak

Most haiku are 10-12 syllables to compare with the shortness and brevity of a 17-on Japanese haiku.

"on" is a system to count units in the Japanese language systems.

Here's a fun senryu which are like haiku in shortness, but don't usually contain kigo or kire, or kireji:

unsettling
my wife's face exercises
in the train carriage


Alan Summers
Publications credits: 3Lights Issue 1 (Winter 2010)