Of late we’ve been in a bit of a spat with the ‘Zombie Research Society’. They think the Undead are a menace to fight with shotguns and grey ribbon; we think they’re our clients and deserving of advocacy and protection.

Clearly we’re right, and someday we’ll bring them around.

In the meantime, the ZRS chose to highlight a page full of haiku purportedly about Zombies, including their favorite:

just a little bite

my single-minded purpose

brains, brains, brains, brains, brains

Now, we’ve covered the topic of Zombie haikus a surprisingly large amount here on the ZRC blog, actually. There are at least two books of Zombie Haiku out on the market, from decidedly different perspectives. ‘Zombie Haiku’ by Ryan Mecum covered the ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ from the perspective of a stereotypical Romero-esque ‘zombie’, while ‘Brains for Lunch: A Zombie Novel in Haiku?!‘ is on our list of books to review for the ZRC and is apparently a Zombie Friendly book of haiku aimed at kids.

So clearly there is a sizable interest in the melding of this particular art form and Zombies, for some reason, and not all of it is Anti-Zombie by any means. The question of why that is the case is one the ZRC is not prepared to answer. My personal hunch is that haiku is a poetic form with easy to remember rules and a focus on brevity, which makes it perfect for the internet, or even Twitter.

It’s worth clarifying that when people on the internet speak of haiku, they’re almost invariably referring to the Western and rather extremely simplified form of the poetry; originally haiku was a lot more complex and bound by tradition. Tradition, and of course, rules that had to be followed.

Naturally the ZRS picked an inflammatory and offensive haiku to highlight, but was the whole original page like that?

Well… mostly. Take a look:

I hunger for your
delicious cerebellum.
Where’s the ice cream scoop?

Isn’t that our dead
garbage man? I wish he would
throw himself away.

Desolate wasteland,
Howling wind spreads putrid stench,
Wish I’d brought the gun.

There are, however, a couple of haiku here that are relatively Zombie Friendly, or at least force the reader to question their assumptions about the Undead:

I was once but a
little boy playing catch with
my new zombie Dad.

I am here my love
To end your eternal sleep
Let my words revive

Nothing more terrible
than zombie adolesence . . .
except Grandpa’s breath.

I’ll put it to the ZRC readers: is this a poetry trend to get behind, for advocates of the Differently Animated? Feel free to submit your own Zombie Friendly haiku in the comments and let’s see if we can bring this artform around.

Tags: Zombie Art

This entry was posted by John Sears on Monday, May 16th, 2011 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.