Osler's Razor

Most of you have heard of Jack Kerouac. He went to Columbia on a football scholarship, started the Beat Generation of writers, and is remembered for On The Road, which college freshman still read. When I was very young and he was relatively old, Jack Kerouac and I both lived in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. I went to kindergarten; he hung around at the Rustic Cabins bar down on Kercheval. Our lives never really intersected in any way, until now.

Kerouac took haiku seriously. He, like other Beat Generation writers, loved poetry and especially the spare aesthetic of haiku. Kerouac studied Buddhism and even his other writing seemed to be affected. In reviewing his Dharma Bums in 1958, the Village Voice noted that "The sentences are shorter... almost as if he were writing a book of a thousand haikus...." Penguin has now published a book of what Kerouac called his "American haikus." As he explained it, the Japanese form of haiku, with strict adherence to beat counts, nature themes, and reference to season, was not suited to Western languages (most of what we write here is, in fact, closer to senryu than true haiku). He wanted to free haiku to simply be defined as three short lines which are rich in meaning. Here are a few of his that I really like:

Two cars passing
On the freeway
-- husband and wife

_____________________

Spring night
The neighbor hammering
In the new old house


So, let's go with that this week. No syllable counts. No suggested themes. Three lines. Perhaps you can start with something within your sight right now. Or cats. Or, if you don't like cats, dogs.