American Haiku: Pop Process

While looking at a random sample of Kerouac's aforementioned "American haiku," a loose set of criteria begin to emerge. While the idea of making formulaic the spontaneous and attempting to quantify the spirit of "pop!," is at its heart a completely un-Kerouacian approach, but it is in my nature so I do it anyway. Without a guide, or poetic form to follow, I, no literary genius, struggle to put lines on paper otherwise--at least at the beginning.

So here are the flexible guidelines I give myself:

1) no more than four words (including articles) per line,

2) no more than three lines,

3) allusions to Buddhism are welcome but not necessary (and truth be told--who would no the difference anyway?),

4) attempted use of common language with a limited number of multi-syllabic, thesaurus-y words, and

5) capture a moment in time (yet another standby to the ole' fashioned haiku).

The first draft I wrote was rubbish being entirely too wordy and "staged." If my first terrible try is any indication, these "popping" American haiku are more challenging than I thought they might be... they definitely require one be more observant of small moments in daily life in order to generate topical grist for the poetic mill.

Stay Poetic!