Sunday, March 1, 2015

All Kinds of Poetry: Poetic Form: Zombie Haiku by Ryan Mecum














Zombie Haiku by Ryan Mecum 


Bibliography

Mecum, Ryan. Zombie Haiku. Cincinnati, Ohio: HOW Books, 2008.

Review

Zombie Haiku mashes together two unlikely forms, gore and haiku. The verse novel starts with the journal writings of the new owner of the journal Chris Lynch. Lynch is running from the zombies that have taken over the world in the back drop of an airport. Lynch finds this journal that contains the haiku's of another owner. At the beginning of the haiku journal, the original owner is capturing the beauty of the world right before the zombie takeover. As haiku's progress, we learn that we are really reading the novels of a newly bitten human, and we read their transformation into a zombie. The poems are little expressions of the inner thoughts and feelings of a zombie as it is making its way through this new and violent life.

Mecum creates this eerie voice of a zombie through word choice, punctuation, font, images, and structure. Firstly, words and lines such as "With his jaw snapped off/ he can't bite into people..." this line is shockingly grotesque, but some how doesn't cross the line into inappropriate. It is these lines that keep the reader intrigued with one hand over their mouth, and reading out of the side of their left eye. Secondly, the punctuation ranges from uses of commas, hyphens, and colons. The punctuation adds to the rhythm of the poems and guide the reader through the poems seamlessly. The use of quotation marks brings in the voices of other humans and adds to the intensity of the novel; for example, "When there's no more room in Hell..." As the reader you then place yourself in the place of that human and experience the emotions of the human. In addition to punctuation, the font types and graphic images give the novel a feeling of authenticity. The handwriting font ranges from big to small to spread out to smashed together, and this detail creates the ominous mood. Finally, the structure of the haiku novel creates a movie in you mind. Opening with journal entries, and moving the character from human to zombie and then back again with the second character creates a truly unique collection of poetry.

Spotlight

The turning point of the novel when the main voice is bitten by zombie and he is making the transformation from human to zombie is an intense process and a teaching point in voice. The voice moves from one of scared and running to acceptance and empty.

My skin is drying.
my veins are much more pronounced
and I'm turning gray.

The diseased outside
slowly stop clawing the car,
uninterested.

My lungs slow and stop.
and I can't find my heartbeat.
but I'm still hungry.



Follow-up Activity

I would use this collection of poems to demonstrate that poems can express the emotions of all sorts of living and none living things. I would as the students to chose something that goes from living to dead and speak the point of view of that thing. Whether it be fantasy creatures, plants, or animals I want the students to speak the voice of the typically unspoken, and tell the story of something that isn't typically heard.

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