An Obsession With Haiku

I was once obsessed
The poetic pattern of
Haiku was my art

In the boredom of high school, I often wrote haiku in the margins of my notebooks. I found it easy to quickly count syllables, often without repeating the word in my head.

In tenth-grade English, my teacher challenged me to write as many haiku as possible, telling a story, and it had to be done in three minutes.

Challenge accepted
prepare to be amazed by
skillful use of words

Cats are really cool
They can run and jump all day
Claw you in the face

Kittens are cooler
They run and jump even more
and don’t claw your face

I forgot to say
I’ll be getting a kitten
soon, eventually

Haikus and kittens
two of my favorite things
I shouldn’t write things

Funny, isn’t it
a paper about sugar
now a cat haiku

haikus are the best
mine are better than the rest
This rhymed, I am blessed

Haikus are instinct
write them like riding a bike
often terribly

The series of haiku was far from poetically pleasurable, but it proved to me that I could quickly count the syllables of words. It was a bizarre challenge and I possessed some skill.

Weeks later, Motorola(the smartphone manufacture)held a poetry contest on twitter. Brazen as I was, I decided to write a haiku touting the features of their newest phone. The next afternoon, I had a direct message in my twitter inbox. “We’re digging your poetry. You are the winner of our poetry contest.” After a quick exchange of information, Motorola shipped me a brand new phone.

That contest was several years ago, but that is the story of how I got the phone that I still use today.

I guess you could say I haiku-peaked in tenth grade.