HUMOROUS HAIKU: THREE LINES OF LAUGHS by Ann Anderson I met haiku my sophomore year of college. My adviser had signed me up for the class in order for me to have the minimum amount of credit hours for a full time student. I had no idea what to expect, because, in all honesty, I was not too familiar with haiku as an art form. Five-seven-five, a certain amount of syllables, and three lines of supposedly deep stuff. Needless to say, I was less than enthusiastic about the course. My professor, on the other hand, was quite enthusiastic. We were required to buy book upon book dealing with haiku, and on top of that, expected to read them! Every week we wrote new haiku, shared them with the class, and spoke about the haiku we enjoyed in the books.

It was not until the end of the semester that I found a type of haiku that I enjoyed writing: humorous haiku. One of our last assignments was to write anonymous haiku about snow, and remembering my past winters with my dog, created this one: a yellow crater surrounded by four pawprints It was the first time that one of my haiku was chosen for discussion and "born" in the kukai. My reward was (surprise!) another haiku book. I took this as a sign that my haiku should not try to be "deep" or "symbolic" or "serious." That was not who I was. They would be about obscure subjects, disgusting subjects, or just downright ridiculous. Thus HUMOROUS HAIKU:THREE LINES OF LAUGHS was born. I think they're funny. I mean, some people laugh at them . . .