Official Web Site of Laura Treacy Bentley
Author of Lake Effect
Open Mic Blog
"In a Nutshell" Contest
| Posted on August 29, 2009 at 10:31 AM |
Challenge: Shrink an entire book, play, fairy tale, short story, ballet, opera, or poem into a haiku, and you might win a cheap prize.
Fine print:
Something small and concentrated like a can of tomato soup or a bouillon cube or your favorite flavor of Kool-Aid.
* * *
I'm stealing this idea from my friend Robert West who recently invited his Facebook friends to try and condense some of Yeats' poems into pithy haiku ( I hope some of those same people will repost here!) .
West's haiku were often funny, straightforward, creative, outrageous, and enlightening. Kind of like miniaturized Cliff's Notes--an author's worst nightmare.
Anyway, give it a go and post your haiku and/or vote for your favorite abstract/digest/capsule/summary/distillation. All submissions must be original. Post a link to the original, if possible.
I will announce the winner and reprint his/her haiku in a separate posting. The winning haiku will be based on the number of votes cast on this blog.
Here's a sample to get you started:
"He Wishes For The Cloths of Heaven"
(After the poem by W.B. Yeats)
Original: http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~hsiao/verse/cloths.html
Nothing's good enough.
I can't make you love me, Maud.
A doormat no more!
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Jane Eyre
hired maiden quivers
for man with locked emotions
secrets wed madness
Wuthering Heights
childhood soul mate grows
too fond of the living dead
Gothic household love
Operetta
Act I: Old sailing ship
tilting homeward.
Mermaids like buoys,
half out of the water.
A hornpipe.
The storm.
Swinging lanterns.
Ropes and barrels.
Act II: Hollyhocks.
by a garden gate.
Girl in old-fashioned gown,
organdy pinafore.
No letter.
Someone?s crying,
reaching out. Someone else
is hiding tears.
Act III: A brook
with graceful Chinese willows.
An open window.
On the piano,
a letter.
Kiss.
Dragonflies.
Sparkling sunlight.
All waltz and sing.
Nearly three hundred
lines of blank verse in which I
tell you "Less is more."
A wolf in Gran's bed
and a little girl named Red.
Beware the unfed.
(Author 1)
TWILIGHT - Stephanie Meyer
I love you lots.
Yet I always hear the hidden goodbyes.
Please don't leave.
THE HOST - Stephanie Meyer
This isn't my body.
I love the same people this body loves.
But I'm not Me!
(Author 2)
HALLOWEEN (film, Rob Zombie dir., 2007)
the sweet revenge taste of
death ohhhh no stop suck it
blood all over
(Author 3)
"Summary of journal entry written earlier by the author"
Drama, Drama
is alot in this world
We'll die by holding a grudge
A CHILD CALLED IT - Dave Pelzer
Mean mom is
not nice she'll
die one day for doing that
to her son HaHa.
(Author 4)
THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME - Richard Connell
What an island
where lead poisoning is normal
a dangerous game
(Author 5)
HAPPY GILMORE (film, starring Adam Sandler, 1996)
It's goin' It's goin'
ohh god ohh it's going in
It's not in! Crap!
(Author 6)
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (film, David Gordon Green dir., 2008)
They smoked
and they are broke
and slight some throats
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE (film, 2007)
Stupidness is usual
Smartness is too
And so are you
They all die.
(Well, most of them)
The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost)
Traveling a road;
That common people don't take-
Only chance takers.
Don't worry, tangents are welcome, and entries don't have to be 17 syllables, just very brief.
Passing belly to belly---
a bearded derelict and I grunt together, politely.
Traffic swirls his ash in my eye.
