Originally published at: A haiku for each element on the periodic table | Boing Boing
…
3 Likes
Of course, any artistic play on the Periodic Table immediately calls to mind Tom Lehrer’s still glorious “The Elements”:
…which in turn, makes me worried that he might have karked it, so sends me off to his Wikipedia page (Good news! He still aitn’t ded!)
And thanks to that, today I discovered this glorious nugget:
In 2020, at the age of 92, Lehrer donated all of his lyrics and music written by him to the public domain
I love him to bits 
5 Likes
Yttrium!!!
Putting my pedant hat on: These are NOT haiku. They’re senryu!
1 Like
It’s an interesting question. That was my immediate thought as well, but - elements do seem to fall into the nature realm that denotes haiku. Also, these are clearly odes to the elements, which puts them closer to haiku than senryu. So - maybe these are hairyu? Or senku?
The link in the article is busted.
No kigo, no haiku.
Of course, with real haiku, you count kana rather than words, meaning that you are effectively counting vowels.
1 Like
Yes, writing English haiku with an eye to the count of morae rather than syllables would be an interesting challenge. I wonder whether anyone’s tried it?
Poem for Sulfur:
I shift my weight and
Gas comes wafting out of me
Each time I eat beans
Er, probably not.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
