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I think he sits at that strange table
of Eddington’s, that is not a table
at all, but nodes and molecules
pushing against molecules
and nodes;

—from At It, R. S. Thomas

It’s poetry time. A few weeks ago Boing Boing started an open thread for phylogenetic haiku, with the stated aimed that “if you google your organism’s name as well as the keyword “haiku,” it will be this post that will sit on the number one spot.”

Now, it’s my contention that it’s easy to do bad haiku. The 5-7-5 pattern isn’t that difficult, nor is it very interesting. If we introduce the seasonal reference (kigo) and juxtaposition of thoughts, or ‘cutting word’ (kireji) that characterize Japanese haiku, then things are slightly more challenging, but haiku in English isn’t really challenging.

While beech trees turn red
New students choose their courses:
My thesis has stalled.

That took me a minute. You could argue that the point of haiku is that it captures a moment, it is naturally ephemeral, and that it shouldn’t be too challenging or laboured; it should only take a few seconds to compose. You might be right—I remember knocking out a ton of them in an English lesson at school. But you wouldn’t be reading here if you didn’t appreciate a challenge, so (you’re way ahead of me, I can tell), rather than asking you to write haiku, how about some scientific limericks?

Structure and form, with rhymes. Can you do it? There might be a prize for the best. For inspiration, you might like to check out Graeme King’s scientific limericks, but I’m convinced you can do better.