Someone Famous Dies
We Post Haiku About Them
It's Just That Simple.
April 12, 2009
About
Your Hosts:
L.K. Peterson has done many things. This is one of them.
The illustrations are by Randy Jones.
WTFAQ
What is haiku?
A poem in three lines,
With Seventeen syllables
Of five, seven, five
Why "Celebrity Death Haiku?"
Because the domain name "celebrity death rhyming couplets" was already taken.
How does Celebrity Death Haiku differ from regular haiku?
Regular haiku is about nature. Celebrity Death Haiku is about dead celebrities.
Who writes these?
I do. And some other people. You don't know them.
Don't you think it's wrong to profit from the deaths of celebrities?
Yes, and the minute we start making a dime off this site, we'll feel really badly about ourselves.
How did this all start?
The origins of Celebrity Death Haiku are lost in the mists of time, or maybe they're just way at the back of our refrigerator behind the duck sauce. At least we think that's duck sauce. We don't really want to get close enough to find out.
All we know for certain is that in the late 1990s a bunch of people on a listserver started coughing up jokey haiku about the recently deceased of note. When some other people — and they know who they are — suggested that we publish a collection of these, we just laughed. We forget at what, exactly but it seemed pretty funny at the time. What was your question, again?
Okay, so what's the point?
Point? What?
Do You Haiku?
Contribute:
Can I Submit a Celebrity Death Haiku?
Sure, just submit your entry in the comments section(s).
To submit haiku about a dead historical person not already included, see The Morgue, below.
Are there any rules and/or guidelines about writing Celebrity Death Haiku?
A (very) few.
Rules:
We are sticklers for the traditional 5-7-5 format. That's about it for rules, but we do have some guidelines (see below).
Guidelines:
Ideally, a celebrity death haiku is more than simply an announcement of a celebrity death, although it will also be that in any case. It doesn't necessarily have to be obituary in tone and the departed's name doesn't need mentioning within the haiku. Whether you mock or memorialize, we encourage cleverness, thoughtfulness and humor. Heartfelt sentimentality is okay too.
While profanity is not forbidden, we'd like to keep it fairly minimal (this ain't celebritydeathlimericks.com).
The Morgue
So, How Does This Morgue Work, Exactly?
Whenever celebrity death takes a holiday, we'll use the downtime to beef up our backlist. Since there are lots of famous dead people, we've set up a "morgue" for celebrities and historic figures who keeled over before this site was established.
If you have a hankerin' to haiku for someone of note not already on our list (and most of them aren't), email your submission to They May be Dead, but They're Still Famous. Please include "CDH Morgue" in the subject heading and use an active email address.
We'll look it over and post it when we get around to it. It might even get a drawing!
Can I write Celebrity Death Haiku for a celebrity I only wish was dead?
Knock yourself out, just don't post it here.
Do You Pay for Contributions?
Hey, look over there! Something shiny!