National Haiku Poetry Day

A single spring day
When our nation celebrates
Haiku Poetry

Expect more 17-syllable silliness. April 17th is National Haiku Poetry Day. April is National Poetry Month and today is the 17th (get it?).

Need English-language haiku more frequently than one day a year? Robot poets find them daily in the pages of the New York Times:

Times Haiku

More:

“Robots not replacing humankind, just writing haikus for Tumblr,” Kirsten Reach, mhpbooks.com

“Not an April Fool’s joke: The New York Times has built a haiku bot,” Justin Ellis, Nieman Journalism Lab

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Short Link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-gpp

Image (“Woman with iPad, after Hiroshige”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Subtle Safety for Bikes

More of America’s city dwellers are trying bicycles, and that makes these trying times for bike riders, pedestrians and drivers alike. Bikes run into people, cars run into bikes, bikes run into cars. New York City is trying a novel approach to improve bike safety: poetry.

The NYC Department of Transportation has rolled out a new bicycle safety program, Curbside Haiku signs. The signs feature 12 designs, and each spells out bike safety tips in poems of 17 syllables. This official New York municipal program is based on an Atlanta guerrilla art project by John Morse.

The thoughtful Curbside Haiku poem cycle covers essential bicycle topics, all except one. This one:

Pedal with respect
The streets are for everyone
Spandex shorts are not

NPR Discovers Twitter Haiku

Berkeley professor Geoff Nunberg spoke about English-language Twitter haiku on WHYY’s “Fresh Air,” distributed by National Public Radio. Like many of us, he is intrigued by the dual constraints of the poetic form’s seventeen syllables and Twitter’s 140 character limit.

Professor Nunberg cites celebrity examples, but we became aware of the trend through CopyBlogger.com’s Twitter Haiku contests.  Some full-sized blogs participate in Haiku Fridays, now on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Image (“Twittering Haiku in the Garden at Night, after Chikanobu”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

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