“Haiku is a poetic form ideally suited to journalism.”
This from Geoff Link - a veteran civil rights journalist, active copy editor and Executive Director of The San Francisco Study Center. He was referring to some of my pandemic haikus, for example:
Midwest fakery.
Pies. Parades. Sundays. Main Street.
Dead myths. Gone Dreams. Red.
Ive already posted my Pandemic Trilogy haikus, and I have many more created during, but not about, the pandemic. Though not true to form, I like to give my haikus titles.
Once my journalism students mastered the gathering of facts and proper attribution, I refused to let them coast on the monotony of format. Good writing became our focus. I always offered an immediate “A” to anyone who could knock me off my chair with a killer sentence. I rarely hit the floor, but the game was on. Often I designed exercises to challenge creative writing, and I always kept a pocketful of prizes for those who stood out.
Even as an editor I looked for poetic opportunities. When I was running the Ramsey/Mahwah Reporter, I assigned Bob Hennelly, poet and later a top investigative reporter on WNYC public radio, to write a front page lead poem about the planned demolition of the oldest house in town. And my brother recently reminded me that I once wrote a disguised poem story about some mundane AT&T announcement.
Back in my academic days I wrote an article on the relationship between poetry and journalism. If this is a topic that interests you, please read this: https://www.awpwriter.org/magazine_media/writers_chronicle_view/1498/the_muse_in_the_news