Bad Poets Society

It's a grey and foggy morning. "I'm Laurence Sterne," I tell Stella, and proceed to launch into a long and tedious description of the weather.

"I didn't realize Mr. Sterne was such a bore," rebukes Stella.

"Well, how about this, then?" I start in on some dreadful idea I had last night during the Late, Late Show: the objectionably-named eiku. "It's a haiku," I tell my bamboozled rat, "only in English*, and with a structure designed to accommodate the bulk of the English language."

"Hoo?" (Stella is confused. I must explain further.)

"It's like this, see: an ordinary haiku, written in Japanese, follows a loose format of approximately three lines, containing five, seven and five syllables respectively. Except--and a lot of folks don't realize this--those syllables are more sounds, sort of thing, and they're shorter than English syllables. So, instead of seventeen syllables, there might really be just twelve or thirteen."

"So?" (Stella doesn't care. I'm determined to make my point anyway.)

"There might only be two lines, as well--or one, or five--as long as the sentiment is concise, observant, and--oy! Oy! Don't go to sleep!"

(Stella whines like a dog.)

"Come on. At least let me finish my sentence. This is interesting. A haiku, Stella, is a gracious and carefully-worded observation, often comparing a condition of nature to the human condition, either explicitly or implicitly. One might compare a change of seasons to a change of heart; the falling of leaves in autumn to the falling of one's arse in middle age--"

"The falling of one's arse in middle age?"

"Why not?"

"Because it's awful. Even I can see that."

"I hate you."

"I hate you too."

"Pthbbbt." (Having progressed through falling leaves and falling arses, I am now making fart sounds at my rat. She, to her great credit, looks embarrassed.)

"Come on, then," she concedes. "Let me in on the big secret. What's all this eiku rubbish?"

"English," I lecture, "is a language of great versatility. It can be as concise as a sign on the buses: 'WATCH YOUR STEP', or as wordy as--as, well, me. I, Stella, find myself constantly resisting the temptation to use every word I know all at once. Some words, like 'hootenanny' or 'dryasdust', I store up, waiting for the day when they'll be needed, and I'll get to deploy them at last. (I added an extra clause to that sentence, you'll note, so I could use 'deploy'.) Other words, like 'rat', 'rubbish', and 'bug', I use as often as possible, simply to enjoy their sounds. I like words with arrs and gees in, especially, and words that end in -ong or -ung. I want to learn Cantonese, because--"

"You're losing me again," warns Stella, cleaning the tip of her tail.

"Oh. Sorry. Where was I?"

"Explaining the structure of your eiku, I think."

"Okay. But can we stop calling it an eiku? I hate that name. I don't want it to stick. It sounds like a video game character, or something."

"Haigo, then?"

"Worse! Worse! (I like 'worse', as well, although 'worst' is even better.) Anyway, though, like I was about to say, I can't decide whether it's better to insist on economy of syllables or on economy of words. I mean, I'd hate to settle on a form that'd bar words like incandescence and fritillary."

"What the hell's a 'fritillary'?"

"I don't know. Some sort of insect, I think--not to be confused with fritillaria, which are plants."

"I'm not going to ask where you're getting these words."

"Good--because I can't remember. But, listen: I am, at long last, getting to the good part. I propose one of two structures for the eiku, presented forthwith:

1) Three stanzas; the first two containing three lines, two short (two to five syllables) and one long (four to eight); and the third containing one short line. The first stanza would set forth an idea, and the second would either present a contrasting idea or elaborate upon the original one. In the final stanza, a conclusion would be drawn.

2) Two or three lines of indeterminate length (indeterminate within reason, that is--no more than twenty-one syllables per eiku)."

"The first idea isn't bad," says Stella, "although the third stanza, I think, would prove trite more often than not. Drop that, I'd say. Let the reader draw his own conclusion."

"I would have thought of that myself, you know."

Stella gets a wicked grin on. "Gimme an example," she smirks. She knows I won't be able to come up with one, put on the spot like that.

"Caught in the furious wind,
I lose my cool and my umbrella,"

I tell her, using the second proposed format. She laughs and laughs.

"That," she informs me, between gasps of mirth, "was the worst eiku I've ever heard."

"It was the only eiku you've ever heard," I sulk. "That means it was also the best. Avast, vermin."

The heavens rest,
Composed
for a storm;

Restless,
I compose
scrap-paper storms.

(Mocking giant-rat laughter fills the air.)

* (Or eigo; thus giving rise to eiku.)