The House of Haiku

‘The Rhyming Klingon’ seems to have engendered some support from the people of Starbase Bravo! Poetic treaties have begun springing up across the starbase. Found scrawled in  stew in the mess halls and hidden behind EPS conduits, the self-styled House of Haiku is certainly leaving its mark. Crafting the perfect response to these abstract poems has fallen to you as part of the Fourth Fleet’s new team, the ‘Poetic Oversight Engagement Mob’.

The Haiku is a traditional Japanese short-form poem that finds its roots in the Renga tradition of collaborative poetry in the Imperial Edo era of Japan. An interplay of back-and-forth poetry, the Haiku evolved from the opening stanza that set the tone and subject of the exchange. Later, Haiku became one of the high forms of Japanese poetry and literature and many considered the skill of exquisite Haiku creation to be a sign of intelligence and wisdom.

A Haiku is constructed of 3 lines of text totalling 17 syllables, in the pattern of five-seven-five.

For example,

Our honor unstained,

Eternal ‘gainst times cruel maw,

Witness our glory.

Criteria

• Submissions should take the form of a Haiku poem entered directly into the BFMS panel.
• Submissions will be judged on a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest) for the following 4 criteria; 30% Correctness of form and style, 30% Creativity of content and style, 30% Relevance to canon and ongoing in-universe activities, 10% Correctness of spelling and grammar
• The poem should follow the form of 17 syllables, in the pattern of five-seven-five over 3 lines.
• The highest-scoring poem will be declared the winner, ties will be decided by the order of submission.