Haiku at Yelp Helps

One (out of many) of Alicia's fabulous ideas: promoting Vow Muse by writing free haiku poems for people!

If you're like me, you may have been first introduced to the haiku in the Japanese Historical Literature class of your writing Master's program. Not! I first heard the word spoken by the timeless* Wayne Campbell:



You may remember our post regarding a stint at a Yelp Helps! event in Berkeley in October where we were stationed as the designated haiku makers of the night. With Garth as our inspiration**, we chatted it up with countless Yelpers that night and wrote approximately 33 haiku (haiku is plural for haiku) on a variety of topics.

Here's how it went: after chatting up the patron for a few minutes and explaining what it is that a Muse does, we asked said patron to give us a topic. They did, and it was often something we had been chatting about beforehand or just something they like. Muse #2 would then step in and distract the patron (envision tap dancing and puppet shows...) while Muse #1 took two minutes or less to write out a topical haiku. The pressure was on!

Most "customers" were very happy with their haiku and impressed with our efforts. Here's a few of our faves from that night:

Topic: Calm, generous, loving - a nice lady, by Alicia
A balmy breeze that
Already feels at ease
Having just met her

Topic: Sex, by Angie (yeah, he tried to throw me for a doozy; I showed him)
The birds and the bees
Females and males all around
Dim the lights down low

Topic: A hyper doggie named Dylan, by Alicia
Dizzying Dylan
Chasing flying bananas
Adorably, duh

Topic: Hula, by Angie
Aloha hula
Grassy hips swing with the wind
Elegant movement

Topic: Sandwiches, no mayo, by Alicia
No zest for this guy
Between two slices of bread
Simplistic heaven

Topic: College Track (a non-profit at the event), by Angie
On track for college
A leg up from mom and dad
Climb the life ladder

You may notice that we're not absolute sticklers for the 5-7-5 syllables rule, and if you read the wiki article, apparently even haiku aren't always sticklers for this rule as it's a loose translation of the rules from the Japanese language. Either way, we try our best and everybody seems to have a great time.

Want Vow Muse to formulate fabulously fun haiku at your event? Email us!!

*Who are we kidding, Wayne was so 1990s. But still totally enjoyable.
**Garth Algar's alleged haiku was actually not even close. But it didn't make the movie any less awesome.