The haiku above is from an entire book of haiku dedicated to telling the story of a human who turns into a zombie through haiku. I came to the conclusion that my favorite haiku were the ones that left me thinking and wanting more.

This semester I have been learning about all different kinds of haiku, but my favorites were always the haiku that left more up to the reader’s own imagination, leaving extra gaps for suspense, or simply adding strange details that left the reader trying to figure out what the writer meant by the words they wrote. This entrapment led to a rebellion by contemporary haiku writers, who did not let themselves be all conformed into one category and instead branched off in the spirit of the Japanese and looked to world around them for inspiration that knew no bounds.

The Japanese did not even follow all of these silly rules, however, as Americans we wanted to create a template for ourselves to make it easier for us to recreate this Japanese art. Although traditionally haiku are written with a particular season in mind as well as natural aspects of the world such as animals or plants, there is a place for more contemporary haiku that breaks from some of this tradition.Īlso, today in contemporary haiku there has been a break from the standard Americanized haiku that puts a writer in a box where the poem can only be three lines long and must contain certain amounts of syllables per line. In this paper, I will be discussing how mysterious, strange, and creepy haiku have really found a place for themselves in the haiku world. More Americanized versions of the Japanese art of haiku has been transformed from the traditional natural or seasonal haiku into something that is much more likely to spark interest, or at least an interesting discussion. Haiku are classically known for being about nature and peaceful things.

Zombie Haiku by Ryan Mecum