IVP - Strangely Dim - September 2009 Archives

Holy Haiku, Batman

This nugget of dim strangeness brought to you by David A. Zimmerman.

You think you have a great idea, only to find that someone had it first. That's what happened with the bicycle, the telephone, allegedly the bra and now Christian haiku. Our big idea for Strangely Dim, it seems, is already a popular account on Twitter.

"Holy Haiku" is the Twitter account of Diane Neumann, who lives and writes somewhere in Minnesota. This seems to be a devotional exercise for her--as well as a ministry of sorts, seeing as she's got nearly a thousand people tracking her tweets. I found it by accident, thanks to the status of a Facebook(tm) friend:

RT @holyhaiku God can fill you up / but there's still always room for / that post-church donut. #haiku.

Dave likes this. But this supposedly retweeted haiku from Diane doesn't show up in her archives, and it's quite a bit cheekier than what seems to be her standard fare. And on closer examination I note that Diane's username includes an underscore: "Holy_Haiku," not--as the retweet indicates--"holyhaiku," an account that doesn't seem to exist, so far as I can tell. I wrote my own poem to convey my confusion:

Help! (And please retweet!)
Lost in social media!
Need guide for perplexed.

This haiku is, of course, a reference to the twelfth-century philosophical treatise by Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, which attempted to reconcile Jewish theology to contemporary philosophy. That makes this haiku--to my way of thinking at least--holy enough.

Haiku Flu

You've heard of the ideavirus? A theme or concept travels organically and informally from person to person until it pervades and exerts unusual influence on a culture. Given recent discoveries by my cobloggers Rebecca and Christa, it's clear that haiku flu is making the rounds these days. I like to think of Strangely Dim as this particular outbreak's equivalent of Typhoid Mary, and that happily the poetic pandemic we find ourselves in has no immediate cure.

As only the latest evidence of this admittedly audacious contention, I point to Mike Stavlund, a friend of Likewise whom I esteem greatly. Mike attended a recent Emergent conversation with theologian Jurgen* Moltmann, and has been so ebullient in his enthusiasm about it that his friends are putting constraints on how he talks about it. You can read the creative impact of those constraints--theological haiku--by visiting his blog. Haiku flu--catch it! Spread it!

*My apologies to Dr. Moltmann; I don't know how to make an umlaut over the "u" in his first name. 

First Day of Fall

Haiku Make Good T-Shirt Slogans

A brief thought from Rebecca Larson

In the spirit of the haiku groove we've got going on here at Strangely Dim, I thought I'd share this t-shirt I saw on threadless.com:

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

So true. So, so true.

Haiku a Go Go

This bit of dim strangeness brought to you by David A. Zimmerman.

If you work in a publishing environment, you've probably come across more than your fair share of word magnets. You know what I'm talking about--random words, some Shakespearean, some borderline inappropriate, some necessarily mundane, that you arrange and rearrange on your refrigerator or some other metallic surface. IVP has two refrigerators in its corporate kitchen, and consequently we have two sets of word magnets in common use. That's the nature of publishing: our entertainment can tend toward the nerdy.

But wait--you don't know the half of it. The editorial department--the "nerdy of nerdies," you might say--meets every week for a popcorn break, and each time someone selects a random "word of the day" to listen for in conversation. The person who uses the word (unwittingly, as it's kept secret) wins a candy bar. If no one uses the word, the treat goes to the person who came up with it. Demented and sad, but social.

This summer we archived our entries--which is a good thing, since we're now four people fewer than we were at the start of the summer. Two interns have come and gone since then, and two of our colleagues have left for new jobs in allegedly greener pastures. All we have left of these four are wistful memories and randomly selected words--both of which are good grist, in my estimation, for haiku.

So, since we're in the midst of haiku-palooza here at Strangely Dim, I'd like to invite you to take a stab at crafting a haiku using as many as possible of the words listed below. Since apparently our editorial department doesn't like verbs, I'm afraid you'll probably need to draw from outside this mix to craft anything coherent.

Here's the list of words, followed in parentheses by the people who picked them. You may find you identify with one or two of us more than others. Remember that haiku are constructed in three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. Or something like that.

• anyways (Nathan Baker-Lutz)
• multivitamin (Elaina Whittenhall)
• obelisk (Christa Countryman)
• addiction (Jim Hoover)
• utterly (Kasey Durbin)
• camping (Lisa Rieck)
• purple (Rachael Hubin)
• au revoir (Rachael Hubin)
• pinto (Jeff Reimer)
• bulbous (Mike Gibson)
• castles (Gary Deddo)
• international (Allison Rieck)
• anniversary (David Zimmerman)
• potter, potting, pot (Andy Le Peau)
• fingernail (Ellen Hsu)
• Kennedy (Jeff Reimer)
• political (Ryan Peterson)

Go get 'em, partners.
I am fully confident
that you'll be clever.

Haikus in Season

By Christa Countryman

So, Dave's Haiku Challenge caught me in the middle of a lament over the state of my calendar for the fall and winter. It's already pretty full, and it doesn't look like it will let up until, well, next summer (poor me, I know). I know that some of you can relate, and will probably appreciate the sense of resignation in the first haiku below. The haikus that follow the first are an attempt to redeem the year in light of Christ. A reminder, if you will, of what we can be thankful for as our schedules and responsibilities change with the passing of summer. So, as we enter new seasons of life and weather, may what Christ makes new also appear reborn in our eyes and in our lives.

Summer ends.

Starting now, it's a headlong rush to June.

Merry Christmas.

Lavender buds and

blueberries in white bowls make

my heart summer-warm.

Caramel leaves fall,

mottled angels warm soft earth;

winter's sleep steals in.

Is it easier,

do you think, to see heaven

in winter's red promises?

Waning white yields to

green expectation. Cold world,

rub your sleepy eyes!

Open doors welcome

sweet, warm, sun-filled air; fluffy

clouds bleed rain and shade.

Solomon did not 

see that each berry and bud

are summer's snowflakes.