Nick Smith

Author's Preface This semester has been one of the greatest learning points in my life. I have been fortunate to take classes that can be incorporated into each other. My web publishing class has helped me to publish my haiku work on the internet. I came into this class with the preconcieved notion that haiku was 5-7-5 and that's it. I knew nothing else of it. I had no idea who is known as great haiku writer or whether it was popular or not. Needless to say that all changed. My work is definatly untraditional. I like the regular haiku, but I like to write things that I care about. I don't like trying to fake an emotion. I want my readers to read my haiku and know exactly what I felt when writing it . . . or be so lost in deep thought trying to imagine what it is I was talking about. For all of these reasons I realize I am not a great haiku writer, nor does anyone regard me as such. I do feel that I am creative. I do feel that my haiku do have meaning, substance, and a story. They just don't fit in too well. I really enjoyed learning all about haiku from the authors to the styles. I'd like to perhaps take more classes sometime in the future to help me get better in my own writing. —Nick Smith Reader's Introduction After spending an entire semester working closely with Nick I have noticed a lot of things in his haiku. Since the beginning it seems as though he takes a different approach than the rest of the class. He doesn't always go with typical subjects. His work has gotten a whole lot better too as the semester went on. I'd like to see him pursue some of the things he hit on in his poems. Overall I am impressed with his collection, especially his 2Pac project. It's too bad the class is over with. —Nick Walters class-mate & fraternity brother