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    Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry For Your...Brains
    Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry For Your...Brains
    Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry For Your...Brains
    Ebook103 pages29 minutes

    Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry For Your...Brains

    By Ryan Mecum

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    In your hands is a poetry journal written by an undead poet, recounting his firsthand experience during the zombie plague. Little is known about the author before he turned into a zombie, but thanks to his continued writings in this journal - even after his death - you can accompany him from infection to demise. Through the intimate poetry of haiku, the zombie chronicles his epic journey through deserted streets and barricaded doors. Each three-line poem, structured in the classic 5-7-5 syllable structure, unravels a little more of the story. You'll love every eye-popping, gut-wrenching, flesh-eating page!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateJun 30, 2008
    ISBN9781440321801
    Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry For Your...Brains

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    Reviews for Zombie Haiku

    3.5/5

    94 ratings18 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Ryan Mecum's Zombie Haiku is another fun volume of loose-form haiku, like his recent publication Vampire Haiku. In the initial pages, readers learn that the journal is that of Chris Lynch, and the initial haiku spotlight the beauty of nature coupled with Polaroid images and are interspersed with comments from Lynch about his impending death and transformation.The bird flew awaywith more than just my bread crumbs.He took my sorrow. (Page 2)Readers see first hand the spread of the zombies throughout the city and how they stagger after their latest victims. Finally, Lynch is attacked himself, bleeding to death from a hole in his neck, before turning into the beings he sees taking over the human race. Struggling with his transformation, he writes haiku about his love for his mother, and the strength he feels even as he withers and becomes a cannibal.My lungs slow and stopand I can't find my heartbeatbut I'm still hungry. (Page 30)With his jaw snapped offhe can't bite into people,which means more for me. (Page 66)Readers may find that some haiku are not as well formed as others, but that may be because zombies have a mostly one-track mind -- brains or eating brains. Overall, Zombie Haiku is not as engaging as Vampire Haiku was, though in small doses the haiku can be amusing.
    • 4/5
      I love zombies. I also love poetry. So, of course, I have to read any book that combines the two. Ryan Mecum tells the story of a haiku poet, who continues to write 5-7-5 syllabled haiku after he has been turned into a zombie. The book is laid out as though it were the poet's actual blood-splatterd journal, complete with Polaroid photos of zombies and mayhem. The haiku themselves are not spectacular, but through them he weaves a graphically dark story. They force the poet to tightly pack the events and imagery into short sharp lines. The overall effect is an intense look at the apocalypse from the point of view of the undead.
    • 3/5
      Very quick read in haiku-format about a man turning into a zombie. I've never read/seen/heard anything before told from a zombie's point of view, so that was interesting and really, really bizarre. Short, but very enjoyable novelty story."I keep saying 'brains.'I remember other words, but I just need one."
    • 5/5
      Totally unbelievable but I absolutely loved it. Gory, gross, disgusting and gloriously funny. This book may be a brilliant way to bring reading to students who aren't interested in "To Kill A Mockingbird". I might even be able to get some of those reluctant readers and writers to try haiku! or a limerick version? I just know that we'll have a lot of fun with this in my classroom.
    • 2/5
      This would have worked much better if it was just a collection of disassociated haiku about or by zombies. Instead, the haiku try to tell a linear story in the form of a haiku diary by a man who turns into a zombie. It sounds dumb to say this since the idea of zombie poets are so silly to begin with, but I cannot imagine watching Dawn of the Dead and seeing one of the zombies off to the side composing haiku in his diary before trying to feast on flesh. Even worse, some of the entries are by hand and some of them are typed. C'mon now, even Dan O'Bannon didn't try to have Zombie TYPISTS...
    • 3/5
      The zombie apocalypse, narrated in haiku by a bad poet. He gets bitten early on, so mostly it's all about eating people. It's a potentially entertaining gimmick, and there are a few flashes of dark and gory -- very, very gory -- comic brilliance, but mostly it just doesn't work quite well enough to pull the whole thing off.A sample of one of the more horribly entertaining passages:I loved my momma.I eat her with my mouth closed,how she would want it.
    • 4/5
      Amazingly it chronicles the zombie's brain-eating frenzy, sometimes on scraps of paper, miraculously still legible (without any major ragged handwriting), and oftentimes decorated with duct tape and realistic pieces of hair(s) that I seriously kept wanting to blow off the page because who wants a random hair in their book?! Not to mention a few teeth and buckets of blood splatters and some poignant zombie snapshots (though how he managed haikus and a camera, I'll never know!).From page 132Brains, brains, brains, brains, brains!Brains, brains, brains, brains, brains, brains, brains!Artificial hip.The funny thing is that I had a friend in HS who had been putting together a writing portfolio of a dark and twisted nature for English class, and she had written a story about a girl who was dancing with a boy's head (though you didn't know it until the very end). She painstakingly handwrote it into a small journal-type thing and added red paint all over the cover. Needless to say, it definitely gets the point across when you hit the ending. I thought it was gross at the time (but maybe a cool idea), but now I think Zombie Haiku is bloody brilliant :D Oh, how time changes one's perceptions...From page 53Blood is really warm.It's like drinking hot chocolatebut with more screaming.Zombie Haiku is a delightful bedtime snack that will have you begging for Ryan Mecum for more of this brainy exercise! :)
    • 4/5
      I picked this up on a whim, and had wandered into its covers repeatedly for a quick laugh or to use in my freshman composition classes (long story, but it works!). Then, while I was preparing to be a part of a gothic panel that was going to touch on the text, I finally got around to reading it all the way through one night. In ways, it didn't quite hold up as well as the occasional perusal, but in other ways, it surprised me. This book is a little bit smarter than it first appears, and quite a bit more striking. Half way through, I admit I was finding it gruesome enough that I didn't want to keep reading it, and that's rare for me. I'd recommend it to fans of the odd niche book, and to fans of horror and zombie related writing and media. In a way, I'd almost say this is more like a film than a book of poetry, but one way or another, it's an interesting little volume that might well draw me back to its pages one of these days, for lesson planning if not a straight read-through....Still, for what it is, this is entertaining :)
    • 5/5
      I loved this book! The haiku was hilarious. The blurry pictures of zombies and body parts seemed to nicely offset the humor of the poetry. I was able to rip through this in no time and look forward to re-reading it.
    • 5/5
      Very interesting; it cracked me up. A very short read, but well worth it!
    • 3/5
      My favorite:

      Blood is really warm.
      It's like drinking hot chocolate
      but with more screaming.
    • 4/5
      This little collection of haiku, and its companions, Pirate Haiku and Vampire Haiku, are delightful (if you like icky descriptions, low-brow humor, and junior high school imagery which, apparently, I do). Although traditional haiku doesn't necessarily follow the strict 5-7-5 syllable per line count, all of these poems do, which is a testament to the writer, Ryan Mecum. This form is much more difficult to maintain, especially over the course of three books of poems, than most people realize. Here are some of my favorite zombie haiku:I lap around blocks.The city, an empty plate,has been licked clean.As she heads upstairs,I work on the dog problemWith a microwave.Remarkably, this book is actually an entire story, told from beginning to end, through haiku. It is the journal of a boy named Chris, in love with a girl, who survives a devastating plague and lives (and then lives undead) to tell about it. I think the storytelling adds to the high interest of this book for students who "don't do poetry."Something I appreciate about this book (and the others) is how well produced and presented it is. The binding is sewn, and the paper is a sort of low gloss in full color. Most of the haiku appear hand-written, but some are made to look like typewriter-written pieces attached with tape. Each page of poems includes hand drawings--doodles by Chris-- that add graphic interest to the story. Not for the faint-hearted, there are also blood drops and bloody fingerprints on the pages as the story advances, as well as real bugs, teeth, and a gooey green slime (I can only guess).Students at my school love this book--it is probably the most often-checked out poetry book we circulate.I wouldn't recommend this book to many adults, but most boys, and plenty of girls, ages 10-16, will love it.
    • 4/5
      The "story" unfolds via a man's poetry journal. Intending to document the glory of life, it ends up recording the downfall of civilization as he: runs from zombies, is bitten by zombies, becomes a zombie, bites and creates more zombies, and embarks on the never-ending quest for fresh flesh and the all important zombie food source, brains. Some of this anonymous man's poetry is only so-so (but what do you expect of a man who keeps a haiku poetry journal), and his pre-zombification haiku are as pretentious and pointless as you'd want them to be. But when said poet gets bitten, things take a turn for the worse -- while his haiku takes a visceral turn for the better, in my opinion. Dripping blood and pus and various other fluids onto the pages of his precious journal, he goes in search of the first of a slew of meals - -I mean, victims. (I'm not going to tell you who the first victim is, but ugh). I previewed a few of the disgustingickyawesome haiku on a previous teaser tuesday, but they were just the, *ahem* tip of the juicy cortex. Though there are throwaway bits, there are some moments of gross brilliance in here. Our mysterious zombie man retains his vocabulary pretty much intact (which somehow doesn't seem ridiculous), but everything becomes a little stilted and skewed, creating a nicely eerie, Other effect. And of course, some of his phrasing, reactions and desires are just hilarious.
    • 4/5
      Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry for Your... Brains by Ryan Mecum is a small collection of haiku that tells of a man in the early days of a zombie apocalypse.The author presents the book as a reproduction of a journal found in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse. It is lovingly reproduced with the mud, grime, blood and guts that were presumably splattered as the man first ran for his life and later succumbed to becoming a zombie.Although mixing a Japanese poetry form with an American B movie horror story seems like an unlikely pairing, it works remarkably well. These snatches of verse give a sense of character and as well as a rough timeline for the unnatural disaster. At the same time, the book isn't bogged down with either unnecessary amounts of gore or the character building of multiple characters who will invariably succumb to the zombies.
    • 4/5
      This could get old very fast but it wasn't long enough to do so. Mr. Mecum gets an extra half star for this simply for pulling it off so well. Deliciously demented and gigglingly gross. I got a kick out of his appreciative comment to George Romero at the end too.
    • 3/5
      Just flipping through this gave my 13yr-old nightmares...place on a high shelf! Enormously funny, however, if you're into that sort of thing :-)
    • 3/5
      It was an interesting read. Definitely graphic with words and pictures but I made it through just fine! Many years of watching Walking Dead has sort of desensitized me with zombies. I particularly enjoyed the introduction and the ending when he started changing. I'm just curious how the zombie kept writing even though he was a zombie... hmmm.... Good read for Halloween or any time of year.
    • 3/5
      Novel idea, somewhat repetitious content.A few I like:Dear Mom, I love you.This ain’t my most poetic,but I really hurt.Brains, brains, brains, brains, brains.Brains, brains, brains, brains, brains, brains, brains, brains.Brains, brains, brains, brains, brains.She’s always with me,especially if my gutcan’t digest toenails.You are so luckythat I cannot rememberhow to use doorknobs.

    Book preview

    Zombie Haiku - Ryan Mecum

    Spring has sprung

    illustration

    To whoever might find this, My name is Chris Lynch, and I'm pretty sure I'm dying. In fact, if you are reading this, I'm probably already dead. Not that anyone will be around to read this … from what I've seen, I'd guess this is the end of everything.

    This is my poetry journal. In it, I will attempt to capture the beauty I see in the world in the form of a poetic structure called haiku. With three simple lines composed of five syllables, then seven syllables, and another line of five syllables, I will attempt to capture the earthly beauty which can be so overwhelming that I sometimes feel like I'm going to burst open. Enjoy.

    I'm writing this from inside a locked bathroom at the airport. After the plague, about a hundred of us moved safely behind the fences of this airport. For the past couple months, we have been relatively safe here because the dead couldn't get past the fences. Well, then they figured out how to get past the fences. A girl named Barbara and I locked ourselves into an airport magazine shop. We lived off candy bars. For a few weeks, and then let starvation run its course. Barbara died and turned into whatever the dead turn into,

    The bird flew away

    with more than just my bread crumbs.

    He took my sorrow.

    If the dawn should break

    and take away this sunrise,

    I hope I break, too.

    My soul hovers up,

    climbing from its stomach cave,

    to give my heart tempt warmth.

    Which is why I had to attempt my suicide run for this bathroom. Somehow, people turn into these

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