Haiku Death Battle Revisited

This weekend was the volleyball tournament, I’ll post pictures and elaborate tomorrow. Short version: I worked hard to become a real athlete, but I may have lost the use of my left pinky along the way.

Also, I spend 24 hours without my wallet. Losing my wallet is a skill that I’ve been working hard at this past month, I’m almost as good at getting rid of my moneybag as I am at volleyball now. This new wallet even had a chain, so that’s doubly impressive that it managed to run away.

A good part of Saturday night and Sunday was spent whining and looking like an idiot as I combed every inch of the beach. I was prepared to spend another week doing annoying things like getting new cards (credit, alien visa, birthday, etc).

I even grabbed a shovel and started digging for it around my tent. Now people are going to think I’m strange.

Although I did get some compliments, as with my shovel, cowboy hat, and mustache, I apparently looked like a prospector, or the guy in “the good the bad and the ugly.”  Late in the afternoon a friend was about to chuck a random plastic bag and out it came. He dangled it confusedly by its leash but I knew what it was and had a happy reunion.

The haiku battle books have been printed and I bought a bunch. They even proclaim myself to be the One True Haiku King of Jeju.

Here are a couple King Dorman originals that I don’t believe I posted yet:

“God plays hide and seek.

He’s a shadow, like a ghost.

Or he’s on your toast.”

“Whitney died this year.

Houston we have a problem.

I’ll always love you.”

But I am a generous King, and pouring over the book I now call attention to several of the best haikus written by the other contestants:

SW Pike:

“There was once a man.

He called Nantucket his home.

Damn! Wrong type of poem.”

Nic Cunniffe:

“The moon’s made of cheese,

But we’ve just scratched the surface.

Could be lasagne.”

(Note: It’s a seven layer dip, dumbass)

Kathleen Callahan:

“Steve Jobs died. Ronald

Turned the big 5-0. Not a

Great Year for Big Macs.”

(Kathleen also wrote a haiku attacking my identity, but the truth is no matter how much people judge me I cannot hide who I am on the inside, and who I am is sometimes a cowboy from the Dakotas).

Matt Leman:

“when it comes to mouse

traps, second place, not first place

is the real winner.”

Kate Corr:

“parents are people.

Flawed, real, like you and like me.

But they don’t have sex.”

There are plenty more masterpieces but I refuse to share them all. You could have bought the books from Stephen Smith for 3,200 won or now you can buy them from me, the King, for 32,000 won, to read some more.

Flipping through the book brought back some good memories and let me appreciate the poetry people wrote. Some people in the battle could have benefited from stronger deliveries, some of the material was much funnier/poignant when I was reading it to myself, which only means that in a performance based competition have excellent material is only half the battle.

Some themes stick out; a lot of the writers wrote about the cultural clash, and there was a common gripe over the general whininess and irritating manner of the children we teach.

Several people discussed the year that was and who we lost along the way.

Also, sexual metaphors involving Jeju fruit made multiple appearances.

Although I tend to think that funny haikus are better (easier to write perhaps?) since the haiku format lends itself more to punchiness, there was some nice diversity of themes and topics overall. Some authors tried to tackle bigger issues like land mines and rotary traffic. Some authors have too much time on their hands and too many ideas for what makes a good vibrator.

I really wanted to eat Indian food tonight.

(note, up until this parenthesis, the word count for this post was 666. How demonic. Or Satanic. I asked someone this week which was worse, and they felt demonic, because Satanic was too specific. There’s some overlap here though)