Book review: Jolts, by Aurelio Rico Lopez III

The Japanese poets have been writing haiku for hundreds of years, and English-language haiku is comparatively new.  Even newer still (for the most part) is speculative haiku -- haiku that focuses on the speculative genres (fantasy, science fiction, and horror).

For such a new field, it is always impressive to find poets who write speculative haiku like they were born into it, and Aurelio Rico Lopez III is one such poet.  His speculative haiku (also called horrorku or scifaiku) have appeared in many genre magazines, both online and in print, including Static Movement, Scifaikuest, Niteblade, and Mirror Dance.

In Jolts, his recent chapbook, Lopez collects fifty of his haiku, presented three to a page, often with accompanying dark illustrations.  The poems range from the creepy

park playground

tinted van parked nearby

license plate missing

to the macabre

buzzing bone saw

maestro whistling

a happy tune

to the downright scary

fingers trembling

unable to dial

walls smeared with blood

and cover pretty much everything in between.  

Lopez is a fine speculative poet, whether writing in haiku, cinquain, or other forms.  His haiku flow easily, and he doesn't try to force them into the arbitrary 5-7-5 structure that many amateur haiku poets can't seem to let go of.  I only counted one poem in the book that fits the seventeen-syllable rule, and I doubt it was written that way intentionally.

Jolts is a collection of dark poems, most of which fall into the broad category of horror.  Some make use of popular genre tropes like zombies, vampires, and unnamed things with red eyes, while other poems unleash their own new monsters:

new fishing experience

lures in the water

shotguns at the ready   

Several of the poems hone in on a more realistic kind of terror, like the frightening madness of a car crash:

a screech of tires

hysterical mother

rolling doll head

In the following poem, Lopez aims for subtle, Utopian horror:

serial number

bundle of joy

custom-made for you

Jolts is Lopez's second book of horror haiku.  His first collection, Shocks, contained twice as many poems.

Jolts: A Horror-Ku Collection is a 27-page chapbook, printed on high-quality paper with a cardstock cover.  The cover image and interior black and white drawings were created by Honeylette Teodosio.  Jolts was published in November 2004 by Sam's Dot Publishing. Now that The Genre Mall is no more, it can be hard to find a copy of the book available online.

sun goes down

one world sleeps

another awakens

(Originally posted on Helium.com, 2009)

Book review: Pencil Flowers Jail Haiku, by Johnny Baranski

Johnny Baranski passed away in 2018.  He was an anti-war protester who saw his share of life behind prison bars.  In addition to his other stints in jail, he spent time at Lompoc Federal Prison in California for trespassing on a military base to protest a nuclear weapons system.  Dozens of protesters had scaled the barbed wire fence of the Navy base with him -- some were let off on probation, but Baranski and others got the maximum penalty of six months in prison.  Pencil Flowers: Jail Haiku is the result of that sentence.

Baranski was a widely-published poet; Pencil Flowers was his first chapbook.  It's a slim volume featuring 41 poems.  Almost all are haiku, and only one poem runs longer than a page.  The poems are spread out nicely and scattered on the pages like birdseed.

        Brought by the wind

   these tiny seeds have sprouted

        some big black crows.

Baranski's poems are not self-pitying laments, nor are they empty political poems.  Many of them are reminiscent of the work of the great Japanese poet Issa -- they have that special quality of noticing the good in life, even while suffering.

             Jail break

   but the guards do not notice me

             moon gazing.

The haiku in Pencil Flowers are rich in content, so much so that the reader does not pay much attention to form.  Baranski experiments with indents and spacing, as well as punctuation, but none of it takes away from the poems themselves.  (Unfortunately the formatting could not be preserved for the sample poems used here.)  The title poem is accompanied by a quick line-drawing sketch of tall flowers, which also appears on the chapbook's cover and is very Eastern in its use of white space.

An Eastern influence is apparent throughout the chapbook, and Baranski meshes it seamlessly with his own experiences:

       Fluttering in vain

   a butterfly with one wing

   where prison gates meet.

Pencil Flowers: Jail Haiku was published in 1983 by Holmgangers Press.  It is long out of print, but several libraries own copies, and those copies can usually be requested via an inter-library loan.  Used copies will occasionally show up on eBay or Bookfinder.  (They're usually very expensive.)

       In my jail cell--

   a shrinking pencil point

       grows many flowers.

(Originally published on Helium.com, 2009)

Book review: Homeowner Haiku, by Jerry Ratch and Sherry Karver

In recent years, many cookie-cutter haiku books have cropped up, exploiting the haiku form as something merely commercial.  Searching almost any online bookseller turns up books of haiku about dogs, cats, religion, rednecks, the elderly -- the list goes on and on.  Homeowner Haiku, by Jerry Ratch and Sherry Karver, is yet another book from this mold.

As an idea itself, there's nothing wrong with writing a book of haiku about one specific subject.  But the poems in Homeowner Haiku can only be called "haiku" by a very loose definition of the form.

The authors seem to be more concerned with filling an outdated syllable and line count (17 syllables broken into three lines of 5-7-5) than with the purpose of haiku itself, which is to capture a moment of nature or the natural world for the reader's close inspection and enjoyment.  The poems in this book serve mainly as vehicles for puns and other forms of humor, and do not stand on their own as good poems.  Take, for example, this haiku from page 52:

Location, location,

   location -- location, location,

      location

Many of the poems are banal and forgettable, and could easily have been trimmed from the book.  Like this one:

The spider living

   on my computer has turned

      into a web hog

However, some of the haiku are actually funny, like this one from the "Euphoric Euphemisms" section:

"Tranquil Park-like Setting" --

   two hoboes and their three dogs

      camping in the yard

Another humorous poem is found on page 40:

Proudly I eat beans

   and franks as I'm writing out

      the mortgage payment

While most of the poems in this book fall short of the true essence of haiku, this one manages to come quite close:

The leaves turn brilliant

   yellow, before they clog up

      our rain gutters

Homeowner Haiku contains 98 poems, presented one to a page in a neatly-typed format.  The poems are broken into different sections, each based on an aspect of home ownership.  The book is paperback, perfect-bound, and professionally designed.

If you are looking for a book of light or silly poems about home ownership, Homeowner Haiku may be for you.  The poems in this book range from amusing to sentimental, reflecting various aspects of buying or owning a home, both good and bad.  New and long-term homeowners will certainly find something to relate to in this book.  As long as you don't buy it expecting a collection of award-winning haiku, you might enjoy Homeowner Haiku.

Homeowner Haiku, written by Jerry Ratch and Sherry Karver, published in 2005 by Frog, Ltd.  Retail price is $9.95, available from major booksellers including Books-A-Million and Amazon.

(Disclaimer: I earn a commission on Amazon sales made from links in this post.)

(Originally posted on Helium.com, 2009)

Two-Sentence Horror Story Contests (2024)

With Halloween creeping up, it's officially Two-Sentence Horror Story Contest season! How quickly can YOU scare a reader?

Contests and their deadlines listed below:

- 10/11/24: Two-Sentence Horror Story Contest (C-VILLE Weekly)

- 10/12/24: Tiny Terrors 2-Sentence Horror Story Contest (Craven-Pamlico Regional Library) - multiple age categories

- 10/13/24: Two-Sentence Horror Story Contest (Frankfort Public Library District) - middle and high school writers only

- 10/18/24: 2-Sentence Horror Story Contest (Laurel County Public Library) - must submit entry in person; open to writers 16+ only

- 10/19/24: Two-Sentence Horror Story Contest (Cromaine Library) - multiple age categories

- 10/22/24: Two Sentence Horror Story Contest (Ypsilanti District Library)

- 10/25/24: Lake Hills Library Spooky Story contest (King County Library System) - 4th-8th grade only

- 10/25/24: Two-Sentence Horror Story Contest (Monroe County Public Library)

- 10/26/24: Teen 2-Sentence Horror Story Contest (Anchorage Public Library) - Anchorage teens (12-18) only

- 10/27/24: Two-Sentence Horror Story Contest (Berlin-Peck Memorial Library) - open to library card holders only, 14+