Zombie Haiku by Ryan Mecum

Mecum, R. (2008). Zombie haiku. Cincinnati, OH: HOW books.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60061-070-7

Plot Summary

Zombie Haiku is the supposed haiku poetry journal of author Ryan Mecum that is found by Chris Lynch as he is attacked by Ryan inside an airport bathroom. Leading up to this event is a zombie apocalypse that began as an ordinary day when Ryan woke up late and tried to rush to work. His mind is joyfully preoccupied with thoughts of his new-found love. However, Ryan quickly realizes that things are not ordinary at all. When he got in the car, his neighbor stares at him oddly. The streets are clogged with abandoned cars. The radio station isn’t playing any music. Ryan finally realizes that the world has been taken over by zombies when he sees his co-worker, Beth, eating brains in her car. He runs away to find safety, but crowds of zombies are lunging after him. Ryan climbs up a billboard sign to get away from them and waits for help, which never comes. Desperate, he jumps down to try to run, but his landing is bad and as he rolls in the grass, zombies attack him. He is bitten, and he knows what will happen next when he doesn’t feel quite right. Looking for blood and brains, he finds his mother and then visits a nursing home. His human instincts fade away as his body transforms completely into a zombie and he joins other zombies on their way to the city. Eventually, the mass of the zombie plague makes its way to an airport where living humans are safely barricaded inside behind windows. When the fence falls, the hungry zombies feast away, and Ryan’s rigor mortis is catching up to him but not before he finds Chris Lynch in the airport bathroom.

Critical Evaluation

The verses of Zombie Haiku reveal the story of the undead poet through the three line 5-7-7 syllabication of haiku. The pages start off clean but get dirtier as Ryan continues his zombie journey and descriptive stanzas detailing the deterioration of Ryan’s body show the progression from human, to just-bitten, and then to transformation. The fragmented, disjointed lines and verses reflect the craze Ryan feels as he searches for fresh flesh. Humorous passages are juxtaposed against the horror of a zombie apocalypse: “I loved my momma/ I eat her with my mouth closed,/ how she would want it” and “Everything I thought/ tasted a lot like chicken/ really tastes like man.” Blood-stained Polaroid pictures duct-taped to the journal’s pages and sketches of severed limbs add to the horror. Drops and smears of blood and strands of hair randomly adorn the pages with gruesome effect. Traditionally, haiku is a very intimate and full of feelings, usually about nature and life. This creates irony; there is nothing natural about zombies, and they are the undead. Also, while haiku is usually a peaceful reflection of life, Zombie Haiku is anything but. Haiku is prescribed, there are rules that must be followed, and there is only one way to write them. Similarly, being a zombie means there is only one thing you must do: find brains. It is a little confusing between Ryan’s haikus and Chris Lynch’s scribbled notes and readers might not understand whose haiku journal this is at first. This modern spin on haiku poetry gives a traditional and ancient art new purpose: entertainment.

Reader’s Annotation

 

While trapped inside an airport bathroom, Chris Lynch finds this journal of haiku poetry written by author Ryan Mecum. In it, he reads of Ryan’s horrifying descent into zombie apocalypse until he himself can read no more.

 

Author Information

 

Ryan Mecum was born May 31, 1975 and grew up in Cincinnati, where he currently lives with his wife and children. He earned an English degree from the University of Cincinnati and he likes to write books about fiction and poetry.

Ryan Mecum enjoys interacting with and talking to teenagers. Some of his favorite topics of conversation are scary monsters, comics, and God. He works for a ministry called Younglife. He loves the band R.E.M. and once told the lead singer, Michael Stipe, that he loved him as much than he loves his wife.

Ryan Mecum is available to contact through email, his blog, and Facebook. He welcomes monster haiku written by anyone and often posts them on his website.

A website dedicated to zombie haiku can be found at http://www.zombiehaiku.com/index.html

More information about Ryan Mecum can be found on his website:

http://www.ryanmecum.com/

 

Genre

Young adult/ Adult crossover

Poetry

Haiku

Humor

Curriculum Ties

Haiku poetry

Book Talking Ideas

Write a haiku…

Reading Level/ Interest Age

Appropriate for ages 14 and up

Challenge Issues

N/A

Challenge Defense

N/A

Why did I include this title?

I first saw this little book in an airport bookstore. I think it was Washington Dulles International Airport. Anyway, it cracked me up. I didn’t buy it because I didn’t need anything more weighing my luggage down, but as soon as I got home, I ordered it. When we study poetry in class, I pull it out and show it to my students, and they love it. Again, who doesn’t like zombies?!

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Foer, J. (2005). Extremely loud and incredibly close. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

ISBN-13: 978-0-618-32970-0

Plot Summary

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an amateur inventor, tambourine player, and Shakespearean actor who is playing “Yorick” in a school presentation of Hamlet. His father, whom Oskar worshipped, tragically died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. A year later, Oskar has found a key inside of a vase in his father’s closet. The vase is labeled “Black.” The key does not open anything in the apartment, so, determined to find the lock that the key will open and the answers to his questions, Oskar sets out on a quest to ask every person in the New York phone book with the last name of Black about the key. In doing so, he meets colorful characters who each have their own story to tell and who have a lasting impression on Oskar. Oskar has a mute grandfather, who survived the bombing of Dresden, and in the end, the two stories weave together. When Oskar finally finds the answer, he finds the meaning of life.

Critical Evaluation

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is told in the first person narration of Oskar; he is nine, but he does not always sound like he is nine, which is reasonable given that Oskar himself is quite a unique child. The narration is often beautifully poetic and more than often quite humorous. Foer enhances the narrative with frequent surprises for the reader. For example, there are graphic illustrations, over-written text, and photographs. Booklist (February 2005) refers to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as “the most beautiful and heartbreaking flip book in all of literature.” The humor balances the tragedy in a healing way. The setting of post-9/11 New York City significantly shows the emotional aftermath of the terrorist attacks that affected the entire country. The gaping holes at Ground Zero are nothing compared to the gaping holes in the lives of those who lost loved ones that day. Foer’s account of a boy searching for clues about his father will appeal to anyone who has lost a loved one. The theme that “in the end, everyone loses everyone” is a reminder to all readers about the meaning of life.

 

Example of Oskar’s vivid, imaginative narration:

 

“What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.”

 

Reader’s Annotation

 

Nine-year-old Oskar has found a key in his father’s closet. His father died in 9/11, and the key does not open up anything in the apartment, so Oskar sets out on a quest to find the lock and, as a result, unlocks the truth of life.

 

Author Information

 

Jewish-American Jonathan Safran Foer was born in 1977 in Washington D.C., and earned his degree from Princeton University where he won awards for creative writing all four years. Under the guidance of Joyce Carol Oates, who was teaching a creative writing course there, he finished a manuscript for Everything is Illuminated before graduating with a degree in psychology in 1999. Oates was also his senior thesis advisor; Foer wrote about the life of his maternal grandfather, a Holocaust survivor. He later went to expand on his thesis in the Ukraine. Everything Illuminated was published in 2002.

Foer refers to himself as an occasional vegetarian as he has dabbled in vegetarianism most of his life, yet still eats meet. These notions led him to write his first nonfiction book, Eating Animals (2009). He has taught writing as a visiting professor at Yale University and is currently a professor in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University. Foer lives with his wife, Nicole Krauss, and two children in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.

His very interesting website is somewhat difficult to navigate:

http://www.theprojectmuseum.com/

Genre

Cross-over

Mystery

Curriculum Ties

Holocaust, 9/11 

Book Talking Ideas

9/11, grief

Reading Level/ Interest Age

High School, adults

Challenge Issues

N/A

Challenge Defense

I cannot think of why this book would be challenged, and I did not find any challenges to date. If it were challenged, I would consult ALA's Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library  Materials.

I would also include that it is listed in ALA’s Outstanding Books for the College Bound Literature and Language Arts 2009

http://www.ala.org/yalsa/booklistsawards/booklists/outstandingbooks/2009/literature

Why did I include this title?

This book made me cry. At first, I couldn’t put it down. I was tearing through pages, reading as fast as I could. Then I realized that if I kept up that pace, I would finish it quickly. And I didn’t want it to end. So I slowed down. I feel guilty enjoying such a book that would not have existed had 9/11 not happened.

“I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love.” (one of my favorite quotes from this novel)