CAN WE RESCUE THE HAIKU FORM?

Transcribed below for your Unicode pleasure. The typewriter is the Woodstock again, the one that was rescued from the head offices of the old G. C. Murphy five-and-dime chain.


We rejected limericks as too undignified, and common meter as too tempting to church choir directors. But we are not out of forms yet.

First of all, could something be done with the usual form of the haiku itself? Our objection to it was that it did not strike English ears as poetry, but perhaps with a few additional specifications we could overcome that fault. For example, we could give it a more strictly iambic rhythm:

A heavy whooshing,
A sound of metal scraping:
The streetcar singing.

The problem here is that we have an odd number of syllables in each line, so if we start on an unaccented syllable, we are going to end on an unaccented syllable as well.

What if we start with an accented syllable?

Squealing wheels announce
Streetcar heading round the curve
On its way to town.

This seems a little more definitely rhythmic, but not enough to be really poetic. Would rhyme help?

Is that the trolley
That makes that sound so jolly?
It is, by golly!

Well, it depends on what you mean by “help.”