The Haiku Festival is Coming!

Hey everyone,

I'm gearing up to host another ePoetry festival; it will begin officially on Monday. I hope it's as successful as the San Patricio Limerick Festival was! This time, it's going to be a haiku; the ancient Japanese form with three short lines. In Japan, and among haiku scholars, the goal is to get the lines as terse as possible; a formal haiku in this country, however, is made with counted syllables: 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second line, and 5 syllables in the third line; ONE of the three lines should contain a defect; i.e., have one syllable more (or less) than the 5-7-5 rule. The defect makes it aesthetically asymmetrical, and therefore, more beautiful.

My Japanese collegue told me once that there is a different word for a haiku that is funny. I haven't found the word yet (I will). While doing a google search to find this word, I found a page called Googlisms, which tells you what the internet thinks of you. So of course, I'm totally vain, so I googlismed my name Here are the first few lines of the many line results....

• jp
• jp is perfect link free site
• jp is jealous
• jp is a fully equipment factory
• jp is way cheaper than hmv
• jp is unimpressed in dublin on gallery�future
• jp is now under constructionjp is unavailable
• jp is away...

There is an whole page more, but I thought that the first few lines would be enough to raise and eyebrow.

Ok, whatever. Anyway, I want to have three topics for the haiku festival. Any ideas? I'm playing around with the following : Plan B. Senioritis. Star-Spangled distraction. Ambien behavior. Me. Naps. Luc Cagadoc.

Let me know what you think!