It’s been a while since I last hosted a poetry festival; there were haiku festivals in 2007 and 2006, limerick festivals in 2006 and 2007. I hadn’t thought much lately about staging another one, but this one was requested personally by the Head of the Blogging Department BitchPhD and her henchwoman Delia Christina.
Originally, it was conceived as an iPad joke festival, but guh, the by now those tweets are hella old by now. By now everyone’s seen the MadTV vid (extra points if you saw it on Twisty’s page). So I’m repackaging it as a haiku/senryuu festival.
Haiku and senryuu, of course have the same three-line formal structure: five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second, and five syllables in the last line. I like to have one line (doesn’t matter which one) that has an imperfection of plus-or-minus one syllable, just because imperfection is tragic, and tragic is beautiful. So I’d live to see your 5-8-5s, your 5-7-4s, your 6-7-5s…. whatever, as long as it’s only one imperfection. Perfect 5-7-5s will be accepted as well, but they are a little obvious, don’t you think?
Of course, free form haiku are welcome as well; heavy on the imagery, as stingy as possible when it comes to the syllable count.
As you know, the haiku form is related to seasons and nature. Senryuu, while sharing the same formal properties of haiku, are supposed to be funny. They can be witty political satire, golf-clappy high brow social commentary, or a juicy fart joke.
Post your haiku and senryuu in the comments section of this post, and tell all your friends. Don’t forget to title your poems!
Here’s one to start us off:
Hold me, Steve Jobs, by JP Villanueva
email thrills now!
magical experience!
does it cut and paste?
you don't have to read v2.0 