Haiku-Tastrophe

I know a lot of us are dealing with an Arizona State education but we aren't talking advanced American Lit here. Please feel free to Post, or leave on a comment, a Haiku that you have made up. I will have a little contest award winner. Actual Haiku format please. Subject is wide open. (This will make more sense at the end.)

I shall begin a mini rant now. The way America is just accepting mediocrity is starting to alarm me. In the name of increasing participation people have decided to just make up their own rules.

I have written in the past about how "Everyone Gets a Trophy" drives me nuts. That is the farthest thing from real life you can get. Unless you are going to get a job in government, nobody rewards you just for showing up. When we were kids if you got last place it embarrassed you. You had two choices at that point (1) Practice and get better -or- (2) Get used to being embarrassed in public. However, after you dedicated a little time and got better you realized a couple of things; (A) Hardwork pays off -and- (B) Not giving up builds character.

I was talking to my high school English teacher and he was telling me about how he couldn't wait to retire because school had become a joke. When I was a senior we had a mandatory Research Paper class. We had to write five(5) term papers by researching periodicals in the library and then crediting those references in a bibliography.

Apparently over the last couple of years nobody was doing the assignments. Please note: These kids didn't even have to go to a library. THEY COULD LOOK THIS STUFF UP ON THE INTERNET IN THEIR UNDERWARE IF THEY WANTED TO! -He ended up flunking so many kids that the student's parents rallied the school council to lower it to two(2) term papers which was later reduced to one(1) term paper. A whole year dedicated to writing one term paper. Wow that must be very stressful. Update: Kids are still flunking.

Well the latest is the winner of Ito En Green Tea Haiku contest. They awarded it to someone who didn't even write a Haiku. From the Ito En company, the label features one of their Haiku award winners:


Where's the good ol' haiku 5-7-5 syllable structure? This one is 4-5-5.
According to their website, this is the "New-Style Haiku" where you don't have to bother with the whole 5-7-5 thing or even try to make it 17 syllables. They say this is to encourage as much participation as possible. It encouraged Charles Rodning to save 3 whole syllables, apparently securing his title as the bad-boy of iced tea poetry.

Chuck, I'm sure you're a nice guy, but I reject your new-style haiku. (And since I'm a nice guy too, I still give you the award for Best Brief Sentence About a Teapot.)

I wrote an old-style haiku to express his feelings about the new-style haiku:

New Haiku is bad

Changing things can make them worse

Like Tara Reid's boobs

Now that's some good haikuing!!

Since anyone can now change the rules of anything, I've made a few official changes of my own:

The New-Style Working Out is scratching myself.

The New-Style Jessica Alba has a crush on me.

The New New-Style Haiku is the old haiku.

Contest Winners to be announced next week.