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 playgroundtinted van parked nearbylicense plate missing
to the macabre
buzzing bone sawmaestro whistlinga happy tune
to the downright scary
fingers tremblingunable to dialwalls 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 experiencelures in the watershotguns 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 tireshysterical motherrolling doll head
In the following poem, Lopez aims for subtle, Utopian horror:
serial numberbundle of joycustom-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 downone world sleepsanother awakens
(Originally posted on Helium.com, 2009)
