Again, in honor of poetry month, another example of words that make me smile.

 

Haiku is traditionally written in the 5-7-5 syllable formation and is meant to evoke a feeling or sensation or to describe something.  It can be a powerful meditation or be silly fun.  There is a haiku category on craigslist, mixed in among the jobs and classifieds.

 

I own a book called “The Sound of One Thigh Clapping: Haiku for a Thinner You,” (Meredith Clark, 2003) which is a book of meditations on dieting.  Mostly very silly.

 

A few examples:

 

Lose inches with lard…!
Fight fat with peanut butter…!
The alarm clock sounds.

 

Mrs. Butterworth
beckons with syrupy smiles.
The evil temptress!

 

Training wheels, training
bras, and personal trainers.
The Cycle of Life.

 

Sad realization:
Fat-free foods never taste as
good as fat-filled ones.

 

The one thing that you
can eat with abandon while
still losing weight: Prunes.

 

See smiling Buddha.
Popular, happy, and fat.
Pass the Krispy Kremes.

 

One grand Memorial Day Weekend, my cousin Emily and I sat on my deck, grilling burgers, laughing over this book, and writing page after page of haiku.  I have searched and searched, but I think it’s lost.  I’m sure it was all brilliant.  At least some of it, anyway.

 

It may seem like a simple thing to do, write five syllables, follow it with seven and then five again, but it is more complicated than that.  Japanese haiku differs from English haiku.  WikiHow has a page dedicated to it, and step 6 is PRACTICE.

 

I think I’ll practice a little and see if I can recreate some magic that I once felt I possessed! Feel free to practice in comments here! I’d love to see your haiku.

 

Off to read!