Do you haiku?

April is the cruelest month (nod to T.S. Eliot). It is also National Poetry Month. And in honor of the wonderful poets and poems that our world has produced, and because I'm an English professor, and because, quite frankly, I love poetry, I thought I'd encourage the creative writing kick that I've been on and encourage all of you to come up with a haiku.

Unlike the previous post challenging you, dear reader, to come up with a short story of 250 words or less, the haiku assignment is quite do-able. Let me refresh your memory from your school days:

*A haiku is a poem comprised of seventeen syllables.
*Although there are variations on the haiku in terms of lines and meter, a typical haiku is comprised of three lines in the following variation:
---5 syllables in the first line
---7 syllables in the second line
---5 syllables in the third line

Here is an example (not mine):

Freshly Fallen

By Paul McCann

Snow lay on the street .
It crunched underneath my feet .
Footprints in the snow.


And here is my own example (not great, but you get the picture):

Race in the U.S.,
Is there an answer... perhaps,
But what's the question?

So, here's my challenge to you: send in your own haiku on whatever subject you want to write about in the comment section. The more submissions the merrier!

Or find a poem and read it and savor the play of language and rhythm of the words. And better yet, if you have a chance, go hug a poet!