Ok, by this definition, many (if not all) of the poems in these pages don't qualify as haiku. Few of them follow the 5-7-5 rule. But then, most of my high school English teachers would accept anything consisting of exactly 17 syllables and forming an integral number of english words as being a haiku. Normally, I tend to discount the opinions of my high school english teachers, but, in this case, I'll make an exception, since it's to my advantage to do so. Some of these poems don't have exactly 17 syllables, but I'm willing to except these on the grounds that, hey, these are cows we're dealing with. I'm also forced to trust the cows when they tell me that these things refer to the seasons (again, a rule never strictly enforced at my alma mater), as I don't actually speak bovine. Also, it's arguable that most of them are rhymed (i.e. 'moo' rhymes with 'moo'), and frankly, most of them aren't Japanese (although I hear a growing taste for beef has led to an increasing population of Bovine-Japanese). But, again, these are cows, and the fact that they produce anything resembling haiku is noteworthy in my book.

12/8/95 - Copyright Gerson Koenig 1995, 2001.