"You should laugh a bit" - Haikus, Part 1!

“You should laugh a bit” – Haikus, Part 1!

This week, George Washington rounded out the first half of our residency with a dip into poetic form with a fun one: haikus! In the coming weeks, we’ll be exploring four different poetry forms: the haiku, the sonnet, the ghazal, and the golden shovel. The first session will explore the classic form, and the second will approach it from a more contemporary perspective. For me, the best part about form isn’t necessarily the form itself, but the new ways of thinking that we have to exercise in order to stay within the rules. Luckily, this is poetry, and the rules are just guidelines, and the guidelines are just things to think about before we do whatever we want to do.

With some help from our trusty Haiku Generator, we made up some examples of 5 syllable/7 syllable/5 syllable haikus before writing a few of our own. The writing has been on an upwards trend at GW the whole year, but that really shines through in this week’s batch of poems. Here’s a few poems from my eighth writing workshop with Ms. Nazimek’s 8th Grade English Class:

Group 1

Untitled Laura M.

Dr. Seuss makes books
Some have pictures, others, words
They rhyme and make sense

Untitled Santiago S.

Winter is leaving
The snow is disappearing
And spring is coming

Untitled Flavio R.

I fear the darkness.
The demons wait under bed.
I drop a leg, gone.

Untitled Fabrizio G.

Summer time is nice
Nice weather and vacation
With cookouts and food

Untitled Yennifer R.

Fish er disgusting
Blobfish are the ugliest
Fish smell horrible

Untitled Evan W.

The terrific clown
You can see him dance around
He walks on tight ropes

Untitled Annabella O.

Like Tom and Jerry
you are the peanut butter
to my jelly toast

Untitled Angel P.

Martin Luther King
He was a very good man
Rest in peace to him

Untitled Ashley G.

The beach is calming
The sunset is beautiful
The water is clear

Untitled Yara B.

Laugh a little bit
Laugh a little every week
You should laugh a bit

Untitled Kimberly R.

This school is way too
boring, I just want to go to
home and go to sleep.

Group 2

Untitled Julie J.

The ocean is blue
like up up up in the sky
Blue, big and shiny

Untitled Janet C.

It is now winter
Everything is freezing up
Except the big sun

Untitled Steve C.

I’m on a mountain
Looking down I see a cow
Time to make burgers

Untitled Alex A.

The turtle is slow
I saw it walk by the lake
The turtle went home

Untitled Lesly M.

The sunset is pink
It reminds me of the beach
It looks like candy

Untitled Anthony P.

The forest is cool,
The frog swims cause of the rain,
The frog dies. Sad case.

Untitled Rogelio M.

This poem doesn’t make sense
Refrigerators are cold
The towel smacked me

Untitled Camila S.

Matematicas
No sé como hacerlas
¿a quién le gustan?

Group 3

Untitled Aaliyah M.

Hi, I’m bhad bhabie
cash me outside how bout that
Help me, Dr. Phil

Untitled Viviana G.

I am writing this
Haiku with my pink pencil
Using my right hand

Untitled Omar J.

It is cloudy out
It better not rain today
Rain is very wet

Untitled Joseph N.

Today there are clouds
It might rain later today
I hope it will not.

Untitled Elisa A.

I bought some ice cream
My ice cream fell on the floor
My dog picked it up

Untitled Diana P.

A hot summer day
People enjoying themselves
The ice cream melted

Untitled Cesar L.

I think my fish drowned
Wait it’s a floating carrot
So where is my fish

Untitled Brandon B.

Ben Simmons can’t shoot
Kawhi Leonard ended you
Philly is trash