By John Walker on October 13th, 2010 at 11:10 am.
Haiku Hero, first
Appears to be a nice game
Racing for poems
Against the clock you
Create a haiku within
The rules as given
It might tell you to
Use just two syllable words
And include, say, “bath”
It then assesses
If you met the rules in time
Then sets another
But I realised
Putting in any old crap
Would be accepted
“bothering elsewhere
panted yellow fortitude
buses escaping”
To which it replied
“That was a good haiku”, which
I’m not sure is true
I think this will count
As one of Kieron’s spoilers
Mechanically
Thanks go to TigSource
For spotting this one last week
You can play it here
(Yes I am aware
That Kieron posted this one
Before. I hate him)
Kieron posted about it here a month ago.
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Yes, but please don’t remove this article, it’s awesome :)
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You will soon find that Kieron wrote all future articles already. They are back in the archives. It’s all a big cycle.
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I wonder if we
Can keep the comments for this
Also in haiku form?
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I’m not sure how many
Syllables in word hiaku
I may have failed.
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Haikus only work
Properly in Japanese.
Moon speaks full at night.
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In haiku the word,
two syllables are spoken,
is signifier.
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@ Spacewalk
No they don’t. They’re clearly very different in English (and other Indo-European languages) than in Japanese, but they’re still poems and as such they work. Saying that they don’t work in English is about the same as saying that American movie format or the iambic pentameter don’t work in Japan (or anywhere else for that matter). They’re just formats that are given their meaning by the culture that uses them
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Haikus are awesome
But sometimes they don’t make sense.
Refridgerator.
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@UW
Wacky haikus fun.
Purple monkey dishwasher
(Simpson’s reference)
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Refrigerator
Freezer
Surprise! Butterfly
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@ Rinox “They’re clearly very different in English (and other Indo-European languages) than in Japanese, but they’re still poems and as such they work.”
Different to the point of not really being haikus at all in any meaningful way. The genuine haiku format has far more to it than just a 5-7-5 syllable format. The ‘western’ version is often dumbed down to the point of being meaningless babble and leaves out any requirements concerning tone, pacing, content or themes. Sure there are in fact some very good english-language haikus that remain faithful to the original Japanese format and rules. However it is stretching the word “poem” to destruction to claim that it automatically applies to any random collection of 5-7-5 words, other than in the very broadest sense of authorship/intention. Sure it’s true that anything can be a ‘work of art’ if someone designates it as such, and similarly anything can be a “poem” – but “haiku” is a genre within this. I’d argue that the “western haiku” is a nonsensical / idiotic / meaningless subset that barely fits within this genre at all..
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@ Teejay
Fair enough. I guess it’s semantics and personal feeling on form/format conventions, to some extent. :-) I’ll leave with one of my favorite and somewhat non-conventional poems, by William Carlos Williams:
This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
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Hippopotamus
Antihippopotamus
Annihilation
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@mpxd
I don’t know why but
I laughed until my sides hurts
you win the thread, man.
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I know why. Not only is it pretty deep for being so simple. It’s also a pretty great joke in this context. Sure better than all other (wannabe) “haiku”s on this page.
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Walker is a terrible poster. Ninja’ed by a technically nonexistant man.
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You are not quite right
Walker is a crap healer
But don’t knock his posts
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I thought we never
left a man behind. John got
left on the internet.
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With my first Haiku
I exploited this weakness
Never played again
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I played this flash game
Typed in some profanity
Was told it was good
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Who is this Kieron
Gillen of who you all speak?
Never heard of him.
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And again. I am
Clearly quite rubbish at this
Though quite persistant.
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Kieron never tried
To get a haiku into
Our crappy title bar into which you can never get any bloody phrase to fit.
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Seeing you do this
Has made my comment shameful
Apologies, John
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surely, you do know
“is rapidly broken” has
six syllables
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The line is broken
not after the longest word,
but after the “Is”.
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Oh, well I never…
Verisimilitude is
But six long, my bad.
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John must feel shame now
Even when not existing
Kieron still mocks him
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Don’t worry Walker,
Lovely even if you are
Terrible healer
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Am I the only one who saw this coming from the first time they heard of it? It was obvious this was going to happen.
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Was hoping for a
Haiku image alt text
C-Combo breaker
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Mister Fred Wester
Paradox Interactive
CEO states: “Right…”
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Evaluating
poetry, the AI reasoned
cannot be that hard
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Does anyone else do
The thing where you count with your
Fingers, to work out order?
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the more you play
the more your fingers will flow
and you’ll forget math
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one two three four five
one two three four five six sev’n
one two three four five
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I recommend that
Difficulty level three
Is used when you play
Restriction is what
Makes you feel heroic if
Your Haiku makes sense
(I’m not a robot
so why do I find that the
CAPTCHA is tricky?)
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I said it before:
This game is truly broken.
Words are excluded.
(Examples: ursine, susurrus and more)
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I just have to say:
Seeing threads of all haikus
makes me so happy.
(Also I’m sorry
for dictionary problems -
good, free ones are scarce!)
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Splitting a longer
Sentence into separate
Lines is cheating. Blegh.
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Nature of haiku
is important thing to say
but how to finish?
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You’re wrong about Curse
It’s better than TLJ
Not as pretentious
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What is the secret
of Monkey Island, Guybrush?
IT’S MADE OF PEOPLE
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The captcha system
is broken beyond repair
fifteen fucking tries
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Argh! Dirty haiku!
Putting pictures in my mind!
It said use ‘swallow’
And so I use it
Mentioning birds, I do not
But nasty I was:
The plight of pornstars
Is always stop with swallow
That is happy end.
Wash my dirty mind
Next must be on my to-do
And no more haiku.
;(
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Self-referential
haiku: Paradox alert!
This line is a lie.
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Haiku is good fun
It got me through English class
I owe it my life
CAPTCHA is shithouse
It is so damned hard to read
It makes me sad face
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It may very well be
that this, of all posts, ever,
delighted me most.
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Five syllables in
the first line or was it six?
I don’t remember.
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Quit your whining, fools!
My Captcha is legible.
You all need new brains.
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Do hush, now, I say.
Appreciation thirsts for
An even temper.
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Jim Rossignol, John
Walker, Quintin Smith, Alec
Meer, Kieron Gillen
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Jim Rossignol, John
Walker, Quintin Smith, Alec
Meer, that’s everyone.
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I’m writing haiku
I could not say ‘in’ there as
I ran out of syl-
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Haiku Hero is
Good for checking syllables
When posting comments
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PC gaming died
when Bobby Kotick said so.
Necromantic blues.
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Posting in Haiku
Should be mandatory for
RPS comments
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The suggestion made
too harsh, unenforceable
a guideline instead
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Harsher than CAPTCHA ?
I think not. Machines
Will never succeed
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Medal of Honour
Got most disastrous reviews
EA stocks plummet
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Kingdom of Loathing
had a haiku chat channel
I never left it.
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Too much haiku here
I think it is time for a
C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER
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Rock Paper Shotgun,
PC News and Wot I Thinks.
Now with less Gillen.
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Thank you RPS
Now the whole Internet
Haikus in my head
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Look at you CAPTCHA
A pathetic creation
Out of meat and bone
How can you challenge
A perfect immortal mach-
Shit I typed it wrong
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@bwion
An impressive feat
Many levels of meta-
Gaming geekery-
Site relevancy-
Haiku mastery achieved.
I bow before you
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Wonders, wonders all
Fine thoughts and company, too
See it for yourself
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Hmm, I don’t get it.
What is this haiku nonsense?
Shouldn’t they all rhyme?
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I just have to say:
Comment threads of all haikus
make me so happy…
(also yes, sorry,
about any unknown words
good free word lists: Scarce)
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Haiku is boring—
iambic pentametric
sonnets are better.
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dozens of dumb dogs
dude, a bonnet, want it? dude?
dog bonnets? no way..
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This is the best thread
RPS has ever had
You are all the win
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End this misery forthwith
Oh shit. I can’t count
Bugger it all. Shit.
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These are senryu
Haikus are about nature
Yeah it’s pedantic
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