Hike-ku

As much as anyone I’ve found the humor in hiking, America’s most popular form of outdoor recreation.

It was while hiking along the rim of the Grand Canyon with my then 10-year old son scampering along inches from the edge of a 4,000 foot drop, my teenaged daughter sulking along because that’s what teenagers do, my wife demanding that promised iced frappucino, and all the while passing one close-to-sunstroke sojourner after another that I began searching for a way to express the poetry that is in moments such as these.

And so the haiku hike-ku was born. I began modifying (some purists might say mangled) the ancient eastern art of haiku to express the sometimes profound and sometimes questionable joys of hiking. Some of my hike-kus were published in the Los Angeles Times Sunday magazine, were a hit with readers, and I decided to write more. One of the great benefits of my profession as a nature-hiking writer is that it gives me plenty of time to think (and compose hike-kus) while out on the trail…

Hike-kuing isn’t as easy as it looks. One needs to get into that three-line-five syllables-seven syllables-five syllables groove and the form demands mighty clever word-smithing. A good one expresses a slice of life or a universal theme and a great one goes beyond this to leave the reader with a transcendent moment.

Should the spirit move you to hike-ku, and should you wish to share your literary endeavors on the Trailmaster site, please submit them to the Hike-Ku Editor.

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