Return of the Bad Poet

I am asleep; on the job, at the switch, and in my chair. I'm dreaming of being in prison. Someone is rattling a tin cup on the bars of his cell--ratata-ratata-ratata. He's been doing it as long as I can remember, and seems likely to do it forever. I shift, wheeze, and wake up.

"Oy," says Stella--"I've been trying to get your attention."

"What? What is it? I was asleep...."

"Well, first," she scolds, "you've got to feed me. I've nothing in my tray."

"Eh? What are you talking about? There's a bit of garlic bread right there--"

"--with the garlic eaten out of the middle. I only like the garlicky bit, not the crust."

I bring her some canned chicken flakes mixed with mayonnaise. She sticks her whole nose in, and comes up with mayonnaise whiskers.

"I've been thinking," she muffles, 'round a mouthful of chicken gunk. "Your eiku isn't cerebral enough."

"What are you talking about?"

"It lacks structure and meaningful form. Way I see it, the challenge of haiku-writing is three-fold. First, there's the subject matter to consider. While one could write about anything--your falling arses spring to mind--and call it a haiku, tradition would dictate that you are wrong. Second, whether the seventeen-syllable structure translates to Western languages or not, the elegance of the haiku is derived, in part, from its form. Think of Shakespeare--where would he have been without the iamb?"

"Good point," I concede, "--and third?"

"Third," Stella lectures, "because of the delicate structure, and the traditionally-proscribed expectations regarding subject matter, one must pay particular attention to the sounds and the meanings of words, in order to use each one to maximum effect."

"I don't think that constitutes a third point," I tell Stella. "It's a function of your first two." I am, of course, just sour-graping because she's right. "How about this, then: Icelandic poets, writing their heroic sagas, used repeating sounds for emphasis*. In each rhyming couplet, the first line would have two strong syllables with matching sounds, then the second line would repeat that sound once more on the first stressed syllable."

"What?"

"One night, I knew I'd had enough;
And knocked my rat out on 'er duff."

"Ah."

"The condescending tone doesn't go with the mayonnaise, my dear. Besides, I have an idea. What if the eiku used words of the same number of syllables, and with similar stress patterns? You could have a three- or four-syllable word at the end of the first line, and a similarly-inflected word in the next line somewhere. Or you could have a longer word, then two shorter ones, and another long one. Or--"

"Examples!"

"I loathe you!"

"Well?"

"Balustrade mop
Weasel marmalade
Centenary.

Argentine night
Chilly carronade
Variety."

"Good god."

"I thought it was rather soothing, myself."

"What did it mean?"

"Nothing whatsoever. Just testing the rhythm, sort of thing. I rather liked that arrangement:

[Key word A] [word(s)]
[Word(s)] [Word that sounds like key word A]
[Key word(s) B]

[Another word that sounds like key word A] [word(s)]
[Word(s)] [Fourth word that sounds like key word A]
[Word(s) that sound(s) like key word(s) B]

--so you'd have words comparable in syllable-length and emphasis in lines 1 and 2 of each stanza, and the third lines would also correspond to one another. (For the sake of elucidation, and the elimination of loose ends, and so forth, the third lines could be one word or several words, as long as they matched.) The rest of the words could be whatever you liked, as long as they were shorter than the key words."

"I think there's already a sort of poem that does that."

"Really?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"Nope. But someone'll probably tell me if there is."

Stella rolls her eyes and spits out a lump of half-masticated chicken.

"As far as subject matter goes," I say, ignoring the chicken-lump, "I think we could update things a little. The changing of seasons, the sound of a frog disturbing a lily-pond, all that sort of thing is quite stirring, but there are folks nowadays who've never seen any of it. Winter in the city is much like summer, aside from the lack of sparrows--and good luck finding a flower or a tree. I think the eiku ought to describe the human condition--or, perhaps, man's relationship with the world--explicitly. Civilization, sort of thing. I mean, we are a bit self-absorbed nowadays, aren't we?"

"Speak for yourself!"

"Eiku about skyscrapers, falling from; bridges, the building of; roads; construction; red tape; the supreme inaccessibility of everything--twenty-first century angst, and the celebration of progress. I'm a genius."

"Socar?"

"Yeh?"

"So, you're still calling 'em eiku, then?"

"Augh."

"Eiku! Eiku! Ei-koooooooooooo!"

Eiku you, Stella.

* Virge told me this, and he got it from Sigga. If it's not true, it's their fault.