Haiku Deathmatch
What is a HAIKU DEATHMATCH?
Haiku is a short poetic form popularized by a Japanese poet named Matsuo Bashō. In the early 1670s, Bashō and his students devised an event called “the seashell game”: poets competed head-to-head with their original haiku and a winner was selected by a judge. In the early 1990’s—over 300 years later—a poet from the Illinois slam scene named Daniel Ferri created the Haiku Head-to-Head, infusing the Japanese practice with a slew of Western conventions ranging from the roast to the rap battle. The slam-style haiku, also known as “ku,” is just 17 syllables (or less) and contains no title. This virtual competition will begin with 8 poets, battling one-on-one until one “haikuster” is left standing.
