<%@LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> Horror Article by Relf

 

A Universe of Terror. . .
An Introduction to Horrorku, Horror Zips
& Horror Regays

by Terrie Leigh Relf

--With Continued Thanks to UK Poet/Educator John Carley




A few years ago, I wrote an article, “How to Write Zips and Zip Rengays”, which was published at Sam’s Dot. I thought that it would be a good idea to modify this piece for the upcoming Halloween and Dia de los Muertos holidays.

So, if you think you’re experiencing a bit of déjà vu with this piece, you probably also read the older article. . .

Or maybe you’re dreaming. . .

Or maybe you’re having a nightmare. . .

Or maybe you have been crawling around in my mind. . .

The zip form was created by John Carley (UK), with whom I had the great fortune to study. He created it as an English correlative to the haiku. While I’ve personally written mostly scifaiku zips and zip rengays, my scifi tends to “cross-over” with horror, as it does with many other poets and writers. . .

Writing zips can become an obsession—like zombies devouring juicy brains. . .

While this article won’t delve that deeply into Zip rengays (which are written by two or more poets--much like Shakespeare’s witches brewing powerful spells!), there’s no reason you can’t gather together some moonlit night to perform this ritual with a few of your poet friends. . .

While zips have more stringent composition rules than do horrorku, I don’t feel they’re in the least restrictive. On the contrary, they allow me to further stretch my imagination. Furthermore, I often “transfuse” between horrorku and zips just as I do with other forms.

Furthermore, individual horrorku and zips don’t have titles; the first line—or first phrase—is often used to represent a title. Rengays and thematically-linked ku, etc., often have titles.

First, I’ll show you how a full moon morphed one of my horrorkus into a zip.

Here’s the horrorku:

hands-on learning. . .
AP students open their
bacterial proliferation kit

As you know, horrorku are usually drafted in three lines with no particular limitations on syllable count as long as they are not excessive (i.e., approximately 14-17 syllables). The above horrorku has twenty-one syllables, and would probably benefit from being revised into fewer syllables. Not only must a zip have 15 syllables, but it must also be arranged in two lines, with an obvious caesura on each line (note: this is often difficult to tab, so please excuse mine).

During the revision process, the possibility exists that the entire essence—or story—of the poem will be altered. I often agonize about maintaining the original intent, but usually let-go and allow the poem to be what it wants to be. Writing is a discovery process for me most of the time, and poems definitely have a mind of their own. . .

In this case, the essence of the horrorku is not particularly altered; it is, however, a bit more direct, which is sometimes desirable in a poem.

eager for hands-on learning
releasing the bacterium

Here’s another horrorku, where the zip revision provides additional details, and otherwise expands the poem’s “story”:

Horrorku:

Harvest Moon--
hurrying home
before the change

Zip:

Harvest Moon an eerie silence
the blood the mind-curdling screams


Another aspect of this form that I particularly like is how well the zip format lends itself to being read across as well as down, hence the special formatting.


With zip rengays, there are alternating “stanzas”. The first stanza is a regular zip, but the next is only one line—like the “one-breath” in traditional haiku and horrorku, etc.

While horrorku one-breaths have various syllable counts and only one caesura (usually designated with a double-dash or hyphen), a zip one-breath has exactly 11 syllables and two caesura.

Horrorku one-breath:


O+ with a hint of lime -- cantina abductee

Zip one-breath:

her blood too acidic needs a bit more salt

While the horrorku one-breath clearly seems to be about a vampire’s tequila-with-lime-chaser victim, the zip one-breath doesn’t necessarily point to that—even though it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch. . .As part of a thematically-linked series—or a rengay—it might be more obvious.

After you develop some familiarity with the 15-syllable zips and the 11-syllable zip one-breaths, you can invite a few friends to compose a zip rengay or write one solo!

According to John Carley, “[t]he Rengay normally takes six verses. A solo one typically will go long/short/long/short/long/short and the two voice will go long/short/long/long/short/long. This latter arrangement is because the writers alternate, and it avoids one taking all long and the other, all short.”


In closing, I’d like to encourage you to explore this form—and be sure to visit John Carley’s Zip School of Haiku and Renku and otherwise study these forms.


NOTE: The original version of this article first appeared in the August 2004 issue of Scifaikuest, a Sam’s Dot Publication. It was also reprinted, with revisions, in Sol-Magazine.

© Relf, 2007


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