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a majority can’t
decide whether to vote, but
a minority can?

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reading most recent
unemployment statistics,
alone in office

*
Today’s haiku was brought to you in part by twitter.com. More specifically, it was born of a status message on twitter.com by one of our local journalists, Monica Yant Kinney:

“reading latest unemployment #s alone in the office.”

I paraphrased her tweet a little, which is why I feel compelled to acknowledge it. It struck me as a fine use of a tactic my favorite creative writing professor used to refer to as “show and tell.” Put simply that’s the practice of not communicating through bluntly obvious statements, but giving information that illustrates of the idea you want to communicate. I don’t know if it was an intentional illustration, but I thought it brilliantly concise.

do not be surprised
when you find yourself judged by
where you get advice

“I mean, they met with Joe the Plumber on the Hill this week to discuss the economy. Joe the Plumber. About the economy. Because they’re very serious people who ought to be taken very seriously.“

I’m for the voiceless,
the anti-establishment
and the dead-end streets.

*
When I first wrote the above haiku, it was called “advocate” and it was more or less a statement of aspiration. But before aspiration came inspiration. That inspiration arrived in the form of various people, some of whom I’ve met, others I’ve only heard or seen from afar.

Louis “Studs” Terkel was one of the latter. He was a gifted man who spent much of his life telling stories of the working class and other folks sometimes referred to as the “uncelebrated.” He celebrated those people, quite practically giving voice to the voiceless.

Studs Terkel passed on yesterday, and rather than try to write something new, I thought it best to re-use an old haiku written with him in mind.

image: valkyrieh116