Friday, May 18, 2007

May: (The Month Following) National Poetry Month


April was National Poetry Month, making this article yesterday’s (or last month’s) news. But in that “glass is half full” sort of way, let’s imagine I’m getting a jumpstart on next April’s rhyming fun.

Poetry month…For me, it conjures up A-B-A-B rhyming patterns, Emily Dickinson, and the ever-enjoyable Haiku. What is a Haiku, you ask? It’s a form of Japanese poetry in three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five "syllables." The syllables are a loose translation of morae, the phonetic units used in Japanese poetry.

I briefly considered writing this piece entirely in the form of Haiku. Bad idea. As Haikus often describe nature, the weather forecast might look something like this:

Sunshine
Happy on my shoulders,
Mother Nature sprinkles love.
Bust out your flip-flops.

Clouds
Cumulonimbus,
I don’t get it, weatherman.
Do I need rain boots?

Snow
Brrr baby, it’s cold,
Jack Frost dances in the sky.
Must make hot cocoa.

Meteorologist
Warm fronts and cold fronts,
What the hell is a Doppler?
Local forecast, please.

Global Warming/The End
Poetry is fun,
Always, not just in April.
But we need ice caps.

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