A year ago, we told you about artist John Morse and his Roadside Haiku project in Atlanta. Now his talents have been commissioned for traffic signs in New York City! The New York City Department of Transportation has installed a collection of curbside signs written in haiku along with graphics designed by John Morse. The seventeen-syllable poetry warns drivers, pedestrians, and bikers to watch for safety hazards. Some also have QR codes. See more of them at core77. Link -via Metafilter

I’m sure you’ve seen them: "bandit signs," those small advertisements planted with wire stakes to the ground or stapled onto power poles promoting some miracle weight loss and work-at-home opportunities.

Well, John Morse was inspired by these dubious signs to create his own version, which he called Roadside Haiku:

Using the brief format of traditional haiku—three lines of five/seven/five syllables—John Morse transforms the familiar bandit sign into a delivery device for poetic snapshots of the urban condition presented and consumed within the brief seconds of stop and go traffic. Five hundred 12" x 18" signs, in editions of 50 that each feature one of 10 different haiku (eight in English, two in Spanish) will appear throughout Atlanta.

Traditional haiku relies upon a seasonal reference (kigo), with a mention, perhaps obliquely, to the season in which the haiku is written. In its opening lines, Roadside Haiku also offers a kigo of sorts, with ostensible nods to the defining consumerist allure of a bandit sign: making money, losing weight, selling old gold, yard sales, etc. Within the 17 syllables, however, the Roadside Haiku reveals an entirely different message, offering compact observations and commentary on modern life.

Link

In what I hope will be an ongoing series, Samurai Frog of Electronic Cerebrectomy has just posted a new "Godzilla Haiku": Link – via The Zeray Gazette

Zombie Haiku by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle
into that zombie plagued night.
And take the shotgun.

Zombie Haiku by Walt Whitman
Every skin atom
form’d from this soil, this air,
tastes like chicken meat.

Zombie Haiku by William Shakespeare
To bite through the skull
or beat it against the wall?
That is the question.

Soon after, real poets and writer joined in the fun:

Back to the buffet
for second helpings-
Care for a rump of infant?
- Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate and author of the lovely Ballistics: Poems

If zombies smoked pot
maybe they would skip the brains
and settle for cake.
- Doug Benson, writer and comedian regularly seen on Best Week Ever

The day I died you
tried to put a bullet in
my head. You missed. Lunch!
- David Wellington, author of the terrifying Monster Island trilogy

Link – Thanks Ryan!

(Photo: Zombie Walk San Francisco 2006, more at Laughing Squid)

Picking up where John left off with the cat haiku, here are some zombie haikus at ZombieRama:

Playing fetch with Spot
is dangerous when the bones
he brings back still move.

I felt your lips, teeth
brush against my shoulderblade,
but it was not love.

The vegan zombie
cares not for sweet grey matter
they cry out for graaaaaaaaaaains!

Link – via Locusts & Honey