This novel is the poetic journal of a man named William Butten, a translatlantic passenger on the good ship Mayflower in 1620. Like Zombie Haiku, Vampire Haiku is written entirely in a series of haiku (that’s a three line poem, with 5-7-5 syllables per line), but tells an overall story. And blood.Įarlier this year, Ana and I read and reviewed Ryan Mecum’s delightful Zombie Haiku – and we liked it so much, we of course responded with alacrity when he invited us to review his new poetic book, Vampire Haiku. Read along, and you just may find a new appreciation for – and insight into – various events in American history. The resulting poems are hilarious, repulsive, oddly romantic, and bizarre.

As he travels the country and as centuries pass, he searches for his lost love and records his adventures and misadventures using the form of poetry known as haiku.Īs Butten documents bloody wars, a certain tea party in Boston, living the high life during the Great Depression, two Woodstock festivals, the corruption of Emily Dickinson, and hanging out with Davy Crockett, he keeps to the classic 5-7-5 syllable structure of haiku. These pages contain his heartbreaking story – the story of a vampire who has lived through (and perhaps caused) some of America’s defining events. William Butten was en route to a new land on the Mayflower when he was turned into a vampire by a fellow passenger, a beautiful woman named Katherine. You hold in your hands a recently discovered poetry journal – the poetry journal of a vampire.

Today, we give you a supernatural double-shot of goodness, in the spirit of Smugglivus! First up, it’s the lyrical stylings of Ryan Mecum, followed by a zombified version of a holiday classic from Adam Roberts…

Zombie Haiku by Ryan Mecum