Nevertheless, I read earlier today that the Salt Lake Tribune was hosting a haiku contest and the submission deadline was today at 5pm. The catch? The poem had to have something to do with "Jello."
Here are a few of the submissions I cranked out during my lunch break:
Dare you add carrots?
I am no vegetable dish.
Away vile shredder!
Tremulous at rest
Fearing the coming onslaught
Cries, "Hide me with cream!"
Once a small fellow
Consumed way too much Jello.
Now he doth bellow.
Jello wrestlers part
More sticky sweet than slimy
"Wanna 'nother round?"
Five Jello salads
Jiggle madly in my fridge.
Stop sisters. No more!
Sliced in perfect squares
Like finely carved temple blocks
Mormon Jello rocks!
Jello fight at night
Gelatenous gobs fly by
Hurled by spattered troops.
Wiggles and jiggles
Won't tickle any stickler.
Jello Haiku? BAH!
I still can't take haiku seriously as an art form, so these may be the last haiku I ever write -- unless someone holds another tongue-in-cheek contest. Perhaps on Yams.
You're funny! I live the vile shredder and I hope this isn't your last haiku.
ReplyDeletelove not live
ReplyDeleteIt looks like I am a winner in the Tribune Jello-haiku writing contest. My winning entry will be published in the Nov. 25th edition in the Food Section. I'm so proud.
ReplyDeleteThe food editor sent me an email informing me of my selection as a winner, though I do not know which submission was picked. The prize is a cookbook so she asked me which kind I would prefer. I had to answer thus:
The cookbook I'd prize,
Since I'm tempura-mental,
Is Oriental.
Congratulations
ReplyDeleteYou are always a winner
In a sister's eyes
Well of all the haiku I submitted, the Tribune chose one of the lamest poems of the bunch and called it the best adult jello haiku:
ReplyDeleteHow they would bellow
When the kids missed their Jello.
Now they're more mellow.
ZZZZZZ....
I might have understood this selection if the contest had been by the Deseret News. I expected the Trib to go for the jello wrestlers.
I figured if a creative, literary talent like you wrote it and the Food Editor picked it, there must be something deeper to the poem's meaning than a bunch of rowdy kids crying over jello. After racking my brain, however, all I could come up with was:
ReplyDeleteIf the jello were
Yellow, it could be sym-
bolic of Donovan
But then I concluded that reading some kind of Donovanian symbolism into a poem about mellow jello wasn't just grasping desperately for a literary straw, it was more like confusing the straw for a toothpick, which would have, at least, been an appropriate tool for a food editor to suck on.
Aside: Traditional haiku, a poetic form that has remained free of evolution for more than a thousand years, were always written about nature and never rhymed. So, the rhyming jello-haiku is profoundly ground-breaking to say the least, but, then, thinking outside of the poetic box must be a Fotheringham trait since the Hermit turned Haiku into an incredibly revolutonary, brand-spanking-new form of poetry by composing a six stanza haiku, which I have un-officially dubbed a "Haiku Sestina." I fully expect this new form of lyrical poetry to catch on. Perhaps, it will one day displace the English Sonnet as the world's most recognizable form of traditonal, iambic poetry, particularly since the world's first "Haiku Sestina," penned by the mighty Hermit, has an Anglo-Saxon theme which stirred emotions as goose-bump raising as those evoked by "The Charge of the Light Brigade" or the battle scenes of the movie, "Braveheart." Good job, Hermit!
Back to jello: The best thing about the jello haiku was that it reminded me of Donovan's song, "Mellow Yellow," which, although utterly senseless, is a song I used to like (it has a catchy melody) but haven't hummed for at least thirty-five years. And that song further stimulated the synapses of my brain (funny how that works) to recall another equally unprofound (but also catchy)song by Donovan, called "I'm Henry the VIII" ("who got married to the widow next door"). Try getting that song out of your head once you start humming it!
My humble and heart-felt advice to Yarstruli: If the Food Editor for the Tribune, whose poetic talent is definitely in question, becomes inspired to launch a sequel poetry contest on another food topic, like "Fruit Loops" or "Trix," or some other food of import, decline! Just as it is true that Trix and rabbits don't go well together, neither does poetry and newspaper food editorializing.
Still, Yarstruli, congratulations are definitely in order for becoming the grand-prize winner in the jello-haiku contest, although I'm not sure I'd put that particular accolade on my resume.
I do believe I finally got an A out of Wes. As always, thanks for the inspiration to write Yars.
ReplyDeleteHey Yarstruli,
ReplyDeleteIt's been a while. Get that magic pen out. I'm not getting hungry for jello, but I'm hungry for some wit from Yarstruli!