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Title: Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry For Your...Brains
ISBN: 1600610706
Author:
Ryan Mecum
Publicate Date: 2008-07-14
Publish: 2008-07-14
List Price: $9.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.94
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $4.76
Amazon Merchant Price: $9.99
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| Customer Review: |
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1: More numbing than one might suspect
I love the idea of combining the current zombie fixation with the precise imagery and structure of haiku. On the surface, this notion works just fine, and I can see why anyone scanning this volume would be enticed to grab a copy for friend or foe alike.
But what works well for half a dozen or so haiku does not having the staying power throughout a volume of this stuff. After so many brain-, gore-, or blood-spattered images, the effect is more numbing than one might suspect. In the end, this forced melding of extremes comes across as a clever notion but not as compelling reading.
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2: Shamble. Eat People / Zombies really have no goals/ gets boring real fast
Since this is the third zombie book in a row that I didn't care for, and I don't recall one that I liked, I think I just dislike zombies. There really is no movement to a storie with a zombie protagonist (jokes about shambling aside). They don't care about much and only want to eat continually so the plot is *seek food, eat someone Repeat from *.
You get increasing gore (hey look, my arm fell off). You get weird shock value (mom is tasty) but you get no real story.
The execution in this one is brilliant, but the content isn't.
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3: A Must Own For Zombie Fans
I bought this book because a review of it in Rue Morgue magazine made it sound interesting and said it would be a hit for Romero fans. It sounded kind of fun, but it turned out to be so much better than what I was expecting. If you think the idea of a zombie who writes haiku sounds like a book you might enjoy, then you are in for a treat. I've read a lot of zombie books, and this one is by far the most fun. Don't get me wrong, it is probably the most violent piece of zombie fiction I've read thus far, but the way the haikus are written are so playful that I could hardly believe I was smiling at such carnage.
The book is put together as if a cheesy poet keeps a journal in haiku form. Zombies attack and that poet gets infected, all the while still writing about his daily life in his haiku journal. Surprisingly, the book of hundreds of haiku is actually one long story. This is totally against what the haiku represents, so I could see this book annoying poetry snobs. However, most of the haikus stand well on their own and are really funny. The author is clearly going for the bizarre humor of a zombie poet over an actual book of poetry, and if you think that sounds interesting, then you're going to love this book. My friends and I have been quoting it the past few days. Most of the haikus are funny. Some are creepy. A lot are gross. And a few are even kind of sad. Here are three of my favorites...
My rigor mortis
is mainly why I'm slower,
and the severed foot.
The taste of liver
is hard to get off your tongue,
but spleen does the trick.
Down the empty streets
my gurgles echo off walls
to which I moan back.
I thought this book was wonderful. If you are a fan of zombies movies and zombie fiction, this quick read is a must own for your zombie themed bookshelf. Plus, for us zombie addicts, it finally answers our questions about whatever might have happened to Ken Foree's character Peter from the original Dawn Of The Dead...
A man starts yelling
"When there's no more room in Hell...",
but then we eat him.
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4: Two problems with this collection
I like zombies and I like poetry, especially haiku, so I went into this with high hopes. Unfortunately, Zombie Haiku is neither good haiku nor is it good story-telling. Haiku is more than just words poured into the form of 3 lines of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables. In fact, most serious writers of English-language haiku recognize that haiku in English should probably be shorter than that to more closely resemble the Japanese form. Even leaving that aside, there are many other formal constraints that haiku *should* have that Mecum ignored here, to the detriment of the collection. I'm not saying that all haiku needs to be utterly traditional, but this is just a lot of lousy haiku. But then, I suppose if I became a zombie, I too might have a hard time remembering more about haiku than what I learned in 4th grade.
On top of that, unfortunately, it isn't particularly strong as a story or as humor.
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5: Must-Have for your Zombie Collection
It never occurred to me to look for a zombie story in something other than novel form; this book was on display by a register when I purchasing some other books. I figured since The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead (guide form, obviously) and Day by Day Armageddon (A Zombie Novel) (journal form) worked for me, I would give zombie haikus a chance.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the haikus formed an actual story, instead of just being random haikus. Another bonus was the size of the book makes it easy to carry with me in my purse (gotta have zombie literature on me at all times).
(I haven't seen anything this original since my husband's monster truck haikus.) I was very impressed with the author's creativity. I look forward to more from this author.
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