The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive-Ass Slippers

Sun, 15 Feb 2004

JOKE HAIKU ARE USED BY PSEUDO-INTELLECTUAL POSEURS TO IMBUE BANAL AND UNINSPIRED QUIPS WITH UNDESERVED CACHET

The Wikipaedia entry for haiku eventually links to this nice little rant calling for the complete elimination of joke haiku production on the internet by Paul Henry.

[...] the vast majority of joke haiku posted to the Internet just aren't funny. Short enough to take the form of a simple sentence, the typical joke haiku is just that: a brief observational sentence about some random aspect of life. When shorn of its haiku form, its true banality emerges.

Consider the example I posted above:

Milk after five months
in my refrigerator
tastes just horrible.

This poem is easily the equal of any number of joke haiku posted or e-mailed anywhere on the Internet. Yet look at what happens when I remove the line breaks:

Milk after five months in my refrigerator tastes just horrible.

What once might have elicited satisfied chuckles from joke haiku aficionados becomes an excruciatingly average observation that illuminates nothing other than the author's slovenly approach to foodstuff maintenance. Of course, you don't have to take my word for it; try it on any joke haiku you encounter and see if it retains even a fraction of its whimsy.

I think he has a point, although Seinfeld managed to make many seasons of his comedy show about "nothing". Joke haikus seem very similar. My favourite entry from this year's contest is by John Cataldo:

perl perl perl perl perl
perl perl perl perl perl perl perl
perl perl perl perl perl