Haiku, Do Uku?

My family has an unhealthy relationship with haiku. Although we adore it, we totally lack respect for its serious nature and elegant subtleties. Every year, just prior to our family reunion--also known as the return to the roots of our dysfunctionality*--my siblings and I engage in a fierce exchange of haiku. We write about impending sunburns, sharks, men in g-strings, and other odds and ends of topics that are related to our gathering at the beach. Oh, and beer, because what the hell good is haiku if you can't use it to talk about beer?!

According to the website http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/2302/defin.html, which I randomly chose from a field of "about 570,000," haiku is defined as:

...a Japanese poem consisting of only three lines, containing respectively five, seven, and five syllables. The genre appeared in the 16th century, and was popularized by the poet Basho in the 17th century. Spare to the point of starkness, haiku traditionally take an image from the natural world (eg the flight of a crane) and leave it suspended in the mind, like a raindrop at the tip of a leaf, so that its subtle allusions may work on the imagination. The Japanese term haiku is a compound, formed from hai 'amusement' and ku 'sentence, verse'. It is first recorded in English at the end of the 19th century. A hokku was originally the opening half-line of a linked series of haiku, but the term is now used synonymously with haiku. Haiku should not be confused with tanka, which denotes a five-line Japanese poem of five, seven, five, seven, and five syllables respectively (it is a compound of Japanese tan 'short' and ka 'song'). From the Wordsworth Dictionary of Foreign Words in English by John Ayto.

Ooh, it sounds so soft and gentle and lovely, doesn't it? Right this minute I'm awash in thoughts of cranes floating gracefully overhead, soft rain on leaves, and gentle breezes rustling the treetops. My mind is now in a splendid state of relaxation...ahhh, I just felt my shoulders drop two inches. I am sooo zen--are you?

Well, snap out of it, because here is the kind of haiku my family produces:

are we there yet, dad?
NO. NO WE ARE NOT THERE YET.
are we there yet, dad?

katie poots in lap
of her doting relative
she's not that cute

twenty times a day
bounce across hot hoppy sand
ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch

beer's all natural
flavors and bouquet no match
for Coors and more Coors

And these are the nice ones that are fit for public consumption. The others--well, it's best you don't know.

My special family time with these wackos is a mere 7 weeks away, so I think game's on as far as haiku season goes. Especially after my previously blogged-on brother Rob reads this posting--he'll nail us all with something so pithy we'll collectively pee our pants. Just watch. By the way, he foolishly sent me some pictures of himself & his eldest son yesterday, so here's a little taste of what I'll be experiencing next month (note the sneer-face):

Please feel free to add your own haiku in the comments section if you feel inspired to do so. It's simple--just pick your favorite 17 syllables and let 'em fly. Believe me, it's the perfect form of expression--short, creative, and not required to make sense. It is the unqualified trifecta of poetic conditions.

As for me, it's tanka-writing time.

*Just kidding, Mum! Our dysfunctionality, which does not exist, is cute and adorable and envied by others!