David Giacalone (formerly of Ethicalesq?) has fortunately reopened, as giacalone’s Haiku Bar & Grill. On December 7th he had an entry on lawyers and haiku. He says haiku is the perfect form for the busy lawyer, and it doesn’t have to be 17 syllables if it’s not in Japanese. Here is one of his:
bq. scraping the windshield
first snowfall without you
and our garage
…….[dag, 12/02/03]
(I have a feeling the wording has changed from ‘that garage’ to ‘the garage’ to ‘our garage’, but perhaps it’s an optical illusion). Giacalone has also written a Primer on English-language Haiku. A haiku resources page gives many other links.
Thanks for the plug, Margaret. I’ve tried to ping you, but the TrackBack elf must be taking the day off. [scroll to the end of my 12/07 posting] No, its not an optical illusion. Edit, edit, edit — virtue or vice?
I’m worried that since I changed servers my trackback isn’t working. When I log in to edit, I’m not remembered. Anyway. The first time I read that haiku, the ‘that’ really brought to point home. I think I know why you weren’t quite satisfied with it – perhaps it was too emphatic. I see the point of the ‘the’ and ‘our’ but cannot imagine the effect they would have if I were to read it for the first time. I like your haiku. The Guardian sometimes has ‘political haiku’, where the sole point seems to be to get 17 syllables in and sound clever, rather like a latter-day limerick. Horrible!
I wonder how effective it would be to deliver a sumation at the end of a trial as a haiku?
Unless the jury was Japanese, I suspect it would look like the lawyer was trying to get out of court as soon as possible. Translation, lost case.