I have always thought poetry is a bit rubbish. Really. If you think about it long enough, I am sure you will agree with me.

What is even worse is rubbish poetry that doesn’t even rhyme. Unfortunately, this seems to be quite popular, and the world has gone Haiku mad. I am sad to say that far too many of you seem to think that Haiku’s are big and clever.

Let me positively assure you, it is not. It is pretentious cockwad of the highest order. Poetry rhymes, that’s why it’s not called writing.

This is a famous Haiku by some Japanese dude called Basho Matsuo from the 17th century.

An old silent pond…
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

It is absolutely shit! Where is the character development? Where is the set-up and punchline? It is a story about a stupid frog jumping into a pond, and IT IS FAMOUS!

I was writing prose better than this at six. Probably.

Haiku’s are just syllable-impaired attempts by pseudo-intellectuals to make a point in a ‘clever’ manner. In the days when writing took fucking ages (because of those feather pen things), or papyrus was limited, then I could just about forgive limiting words and syllables to make your point in the briefest possible way. But Christ on a skateboard, you people have word processors, why not use them?

If you want decent poetry go to the library and look up the work ‘Limerick’. No poem ever ended badly when it started with, “There was a young girl from Nantucket…”

No tags