The Online Voice of the Bicycle Alliance of Washington


Monday, June 13, 2011

Bicycle Haiku

Bicycle kanji
A few months ago, just for fun, I posted a bicycle haiku that I had written on the Bicycle Alliance's Facebook page:

With tailwind and smile
I roll through many landscapes.
My bike sets me free! 
Then I invited our Facebook friends to share their own bicycle haiku, and they did!  Here are a couple of them:

Fresh smooth roadway calls
Tires gliding soundlessly
Speed and balance sweet.
- Anthony Medina 
li'l stardust rider
swaying with each pedal stroke
six-year-old freedom.
- Claire Petersky
I quickly discovered that bicycle haiku, or baiku as it is sometimes called, is a popular subset of this poetry form and there are websites dedicated to it.  For instance, there is the Baiku blog written by a cyclist and poet in Portland.  A website called Bike Reader has a page dedicated to bicycle haiku and contains over a hundred bicycle haiku submissions.

Now, dear cyclist, it's your turn to spin your creative wheels as I invite you to submit your own bicycle haiku.  Please follow the standard haiku form of three lines--5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables.

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