Sat 4/8 @ 7PM
No, “Haiku Death Match” isn’t the title of Quentin Tarantino’s next installment in his Kill Bill series. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of slicing and dicing to be witnessed at the 5th Not-Exactly-Annual Haiku Death Match, which takes place April 8 at the Dobama Theatre in Cleveland Heights.
The Heights Arts battle royal commemorates National Poetry Month with returning champions and contestants including Dianne Borsenik (poet and founder of Night Ballet Press), Michael Ceraolo (retired firefighter/paramedic and writer), Celeste McCarty (artist, writer and performer), Ray McNiece (actor, poet and former Haiku Death Match champion), Mary Turzillo (poet, science fiction writer and fencing champion), Geoffrey Landis (NASA physicist, poet and science fiction writer), Christine Donofrio (artist, writer, poet and filmmaker) and Cordelia Eddy (’zine writer and East Coast ex-pat).
In a nutshell, the first half of the event finds eight poets reading contemporary haiku on subjects such as personal relationships, politics, animals in our life, the daily grind and all things Cleveland. From there, the final four bill battle in traditional haiku.
CoolCleveland talked to one of the Haiku Death Match organizers, Kathleen Cerveny, a former poet laureate of Heights Arts.
Tell us about the Haiku Death Match.
It’s been going on in Heights Arts for quite a number of years, but it’s not always a regular occurrence. We’re planning on making it an annual event. There are haiku championships and contests all over the country. It’s a competition with audience participation. It’s a fun and funny and often irreverent evening at the theater, if you will.
Ahem, for those unfamiliar with haiku, can you explain?
Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry in three lines with a totality of 17 syllables. There are five syllables in the first line, seven in the second and five in the third line. But the thing about haiku, it captures and crystallizes a moment in time of an experience that everybody has had, but which is seen in a brilliant new light. So a haiku should make you say, “Yeah, I know that, but I never thought about it that way.” And haiku always has to do with nature. So, these are nature poems.
How often do participants violate the strict confines of haiku?
All of the time; however, this year we are really holding them to a pretty high standard because we’re really educating the audience about the criteria. And in fact, we’re helping them understand not only what haiku is, which is a nature focus form of poetry, but we’re also hoping they’ll understand a form called Senryu. It’s also exactly the same format as the haiku, but it deals with issues of human nature and it’s often very funny, very satirical. There’s going to be a lot of that going on in the Death Match.
So what makes you a haiku expert?
I was the champion two years running, I think in 2011 and 2012.
It seems as though the haiku style really challenges a poet to utilize their writing talents?
It absolutely does. Often one of the main challenges of a poet is distillation. It’s getting it down to the essence, and haiku is like the most impressive example of that. I’m a fairly standard poet in generally traditional forms. I enjoy doing it very much, as many of my fellow poets do. I once spent a year writing a haiku a day.
Anything new for this year’s Death Match?
For the first time, there are five qualifying rounds that each of the poets have to prepare poems in five different categories. Over the first five qualifying rounds, there will be up to 80 different poems read. And that may sound like a lot, but it only takes about 10 seconds to read a haiku.
The one cool thing for the audience is they get to vote on each battle.
Right, they’re going to hear eight different poets. They’ll be competing in pairs so one poet will say a poem and another will try to do a better poem and the audience gets to decide. Plus, they get to hear eight really skilled poets dealing in a very crystallized craft over the course of the evening and experience an art form in a fun, relaxed, competitive, but friendly competitive atmosphere. There will be prizes. It’s just going to be a lot of fun.
So, are you a death match champion in anything else?
No, I can’t say that I am.
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118