Despite a lack of cheese, why is American haiku a lot like American pizza?

I admit, I’ve been reading a lot about haiku lately.
 
And in a moment
I laughed aloud because of
Haiku as pizza
 
See what I did there?
 
If so, you’ve been paying attention. We love that!

BTW, the pizza haiku contest post is here should you need to reference it. 

​Pizza is a foreign import. So is haiku.
 
Both began gaining traction in the United States at about the same time.
 
Pizza was a product of the Italian diaspora of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
 
It was brought to the US by Italian immigrants, then adapted and commercialized using the tools available at the time.
 
In the evolution of American pizza, one of the key figures was Frank Mastro. He developed recipes, adapted commercial ovens, created operational systems, arranged financing, and invented a model of pizza best represented today by the New York-style pizza we all know and love.
 
Haiku was also a Japanese import to the US—but bears little resemblance to the Japanese form.
 
 
In fact, comparing American haiku to Japanese haiku is far more difficult than comparing New York pizza to Neapolitan wood-fired pizza.
 
Both pizzas are flat and round and covered with tomato and cheese.
 
Haiku is not.
 
There’s a level of complexity to traditional Japanese haiku that most Americans never experience.
 
That’s because we’d been assigned haiku in English classes as little more than a writing exercise that involves counting syllables.
 
The two haikus are very different things.
 
Especially when, like me, you count all those syllables on your fingers.
 
 
That’s OK. We all gotta start somewhere.
 
Haiku in English was first executed at the end of the 19th century. We’re talking at the end of the Victorian era, which probably tells you something.
 
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward
All in the valley of death
   Rode the 600.
 
 
You know what follows: Jaws of death, mouth of hell, smoke, sabers, blood, death, dry cleaning bills, etc., etc.
 
At 55 lines, six stanzas, and 260 words, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson is not a model of efficiency—and is certainly more violent than most haiku or pizza.
 
And Walter White’s infamous angry pizza throw in Breaking Bad is certainly a more haiku-like vision of casual pizza violence.

Breaking Bad Pizza GIFfrom Breaking Bad GIFs

Trivia: It has been said that the local pizzeria in Albuquerque whose name is on that pizza box refuses to sell any more unsliced pizzas. Is it possible they’re tired of getting complaints about pizzas ending up on people's rooftops?
 
But I digress.
 
 
English-language Haiku first spread across England and Australia.
 
It took longer to reach the United States. But when it did, the first notable haiku-inspired verse here was from that upstart punk poet of modernist mayhem, Ezra Pound.
 
Pound shook up the poetry status quo and came out swinging against Victorian pomposity and verbosity when he dropped the haiku-like two-liner, “In a Station of the Metro.”
 
Ready?
 
The apparition of these faces in a crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
 
 
Well, there ya go haiku!
 
Not exactly the 5/7/5 construct we all rest our heads upon at night.
 
But you can see the minimalism at work because it cuts through the noise like a stainless-steel, Dexter-Russell pizza slicer cuts through the crust of a 20-inch New York pizza with a bang, a zip and a crunch.
 
Also, Ezra Pound was a maniac.
 
And now, we’re going to dump him at the side of the road because of his virulent anti-capitalism, his vocal support for Nazism, and his pro-fascist activism--all of which sour the mood to follow.
 
 
Sorry. Controversy abounds.
 
Little known fact: During Ezra Pound’s fascist Italy days, everybody wore T-shirts that said, “Ezra eats pineapple on pizza”.
 
But still, such cool name: Ezra Pound. Oh, well.
 
About the same time Pound was pounding out haiku-inspired verse, the Japanese writer Ione Noguchi was tweaking the pretenses of American poetry.
 
He published a piece in 1904 called, “A Proposal to American poets.“
 
He shared some of his own English language verse, then said, “Pray, you try Japanese haiku, my American poets! You say far too much, I should say.”


And really, look at what efficient little verses he wrote during that time. 

Despite it's bite-size form factor, his poetry tears it up:

Full of faults, you say
What beauty in repentance
Tears, songs--thus life flows

Wow. 
 
By the way, if the name “Noguchi” seems familiar, that’s probably because he was the father of the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, who created that sexy Art Nouveau wood and glass coffee table you always see in expensive mid-century modern bachelor pads on TV.

Like in Raj‘s apartment on The Big Bang Theory.
 
There's also a Thursday-night pizza ritual in the world of the show.
 
I'm told by my friend Googley Eye that Sheldon defines pizza as “A circle made of triangles served in a square box.”
 
I take exception to that description.
 
A true scientist would know that pizza slices are not triangles but circular sectors.
 
That said, the term “circular sectors” does not possess the same poetry as “triangles” unless you start digging deep into phonemes. So there’s that.
 
As for the Noguchis, there is no record of their opinions on pizza, though Imasu lived in New York. So he must’ve eaten it.
 
 
And Ezra Pound once wrote a poem that mentioned pizza because of a transcription error.
 
From a recording of Pound reading his poem “Canto XXXV,” the line, “side toward the Piazza” was transcribed as “side toward the pizza.“
 
Among that laugh-riot-prone poetry literati, hilarity ensued.
 
You can be certain there was hilarity because Google AI says so.
 
And “pizza” is, of course, an obvious mistake because the poem is about Venice and Venice is not known for its pizza.
 
But I digress.
 
Wow. We’re already almost 1000 words into this and I still haven’t gotten to the point.
 
 
The point is that all of this pizza haiku has been fun.
 
I’m having fun.
 
Free The Pizza readers are having fun writing it.
 
And for the most part, our English-language American pizza haiku has no resemblance to proper Japanese haiku.
 
It’s not as sophisticated, it’s not as imagistic, and it’s not as complex.
 
But you know what?
 
 
The one thing that both haiku and pizza have in common is about as important as it gets.
 
Ready?
 
Like a great pizza, a great haiku thrives on the philosophy that less is more.
 
One of the things that I have noticed with the haiku submissions I’ve been getting is that the best ones have far fewer words than you could imagine would be required to make them understandable.
 
Less is more.
 
Incomplete sentences abound.
 
Less is more.
 
Adjectives without nouns to modify.
 
Less is more.
 
Pepperoni scattered
Abundant cheese sneaks through
The better to taste
 
Mushrooms meet sausage
Yet mozzarella sees clear
Finessing the bite
 
Flavor profile wins
When balance moderates
Over muddled mass
 
Those are three haikus. Kind of a triptych. You don't need to do that. Separate haikus will do. That's just me being a pizza poetry overachiever. 

 
Anyway, you have the rest of today to enter the contest.
 
Who knows? There might even be some wildcard prizes.
 
And yes, an 8-year kid old could win.
 
Maybe.
 

But I know for a fact that you can’t win--

Unless you enter.
 
As the great Wayne Gretzky says, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, according to Michael Scott from The Office.
 
Conversely, 100% of the pizzas you don’t make will never turn into an accidental calzone. So there’s that.


HAIKU TIPS

It helps to have an action in a haiku. Like, "Hot cheese flap slaps upon chin."  (We call that slapstick haiku.)

It also helps to focus on the nature of pizza. Like, "Hot umami tingle taste."


HAIKU RULES

Remember the Haiku Rule (Written in Haiku)...

Three lines for haiku
Syllable count per line is
Five/Seven/Five and done
 
Pick your poison pie
Turn it into a haiku
Submitting right here
 
You have until midnight tonight.
 
Free The Pizza, Haiku writer-san!

----- 

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