rob's victory haiku (no peeking 'til 2004)

Click here if you don't know why Rob gets a victory haiku to start the new year.

Alas, as it turns out, I am going to a New Years' Eve party in Chicago and so will not be home after all to post my haiku at the stroke of midnight. I apologize for raising anticipation unnecessarily. I had thought about telephoning with it, but then I thought about all the readers out there who have reported not being able to listen to the audio blog posts--and I realized I had to just post it early.

If you are reading this and it's still 2003, feel free not to look any farther before midnight. Indeed, to stall so that the reader can more easily divert their eyes, let me copy-and-paste some online advice for haiku composers, so you will see the kind of counsel one receives when seeking inspiration about this art:

Write only when you have been moved, touched or inspired by an actual experience.

Just relax and be yourself, without straining or effort. So be honest, simple, clear and straightforward.

Say how it is without abstractions, avoid explanations and philosophising, leave space for readers to feel their own responses. [how much explaining a philosophizing can you do in 17 syllables.]

Resist heaviness and overloading; prefer allusion and understatement.

Try to express your feelings through the images you use, rather than actually saying you are "sad" or "lonely". This gives space for the readers to experience those feelings for themselves [yes, the goal is to have you actually feel sad and lonely, rather than just read about it.

Actually, I have three haiku for Rob. I had composed 13 haiku for Anne "Smash" Berry, who [followed closely by her counterpart, Joe "Ax" Berry] led the pool for many weeks prior to Rob's thrilling come from behind victory. I'll present them in order of their fealty to traditional haiku content.

1. Old-school haiku:

fierce little sausage
snaps bites tongues to guard secret
no meat, only soy

2. Middle-school haiku:

relentless wolv'rine
leaps and leaps and then at last
plucks down the berries

[um, berries/Berrys, get it?]

3. New-school haiku:

rob may like to win
but he loves more to triumph
with orderliness

Happy New Year from all of us at JFW!!!