March 31, 2013

Can You Scaiku?

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

A couple weeks ago, I was reminded how much I enjoy the poetry format known as haiku. On a whim, I threw out a tweet soliciting #scaiku, science-themed haiku, to see what delights my tweeps would come up with. Some made me laugh out loud:

This one time at lab
we dropped acid and then we
had to clean it up
-Public Communication for Researchers, @PCRcmu

Each person in lab
says a different prayer when
sacrificing flies
-Public Communication for Researchers, @PCRcmu

"Eureka!" I shout,
Every now and again, just
to keep up morale
-Public Communication for Researchers, @PCRcmu

Some made me go hmmm...

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Science: a quest for
the highest quality of
human ignorance.
- Katura Reynolds, @katura_art

I don't find answers
when I'm lucky, confusion
at a higher level
-Public Communication for Researchers, @PCRcmu

like protons we push
away and hold together
this strong force called love
-Public Communication for Researchers, @PCRcmu

And one answered an age-old and surprisingly relevant question, given that today is Easter Sunday, unofficial day of the hard-boiled egg:

Fish lay eggs long before
chicken had evolved. so I
guess that answers that
-Public Communication for Researchers, @PCRcmu

For those of you who need a refresher, haiku (in English) is a three-line poem where the first and third lines contain five syllables, the second line contains seven. Like so:

Five syllables first,

Then seven syllables next,

and finally, five.

But to the true haiku aficionado, the abomination I wrote above is not haiku. Why? Well, I just learned that true literary haiku consists of two parts that span the three lines. And when I think about it, the best haiku I've encountered flow in a way my pseudo-haiku above does not, spreading phrases from one line to the next.

Many thanks to the person/people behind Public Communication for Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Katura Reynolds for permission to post their great #scaiku.

Feeling inspired? Add your #scaiku in the comments section or tweet it out to the masses with hashtag #scaiku.

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