By The Letter

Entrepreneurs seeking a novel way to market to customers need search no more--provided they're daring enough to put poetry into motion. As English teachers rejoice, the Japanese verse form known as haiku is cropping up in the unlikeliest of places, most notably on the Internet.

"It's fun to do," says the Haiku Society of America's Lee Gurga. "[Haiku] is one of the easiest kinds of poetry to begin writing. Although to write good haiku is quite difficult."

To Gurga's way of thinking, the numerous haiku Internet sites that wax poetic on such pop culture fixtures as, say, Twinkies, don't necessarily fit into this latter category. And yet, couple this haiku hyperactivity with the growing membership in Gurga's own organization, and you've got a mainstream audience for what is typically thought of as three-line, 17-syllable verse. To wit: Here we sit thinking/pondering haiku's secrets/brain overload feared.

"Haiku [is proof] that people want instant gratification," says Gurga, speculating further on the resurgence of haiku in today's society. "It's instant poetry."

A word to the wise, however: Gurga insists that the 17-syllable structure is an anachronism. "Haiku is characterized by brevity--but not length," he explains, adding that a reference to nature is also customary. Hmmm . . . not 17 syllables? That's not what our English teachers told us.

This article was originally published in the October 1997 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: By The Letter.