Haiku U.: Short Takes on the New Semester
By Gina Barreca
I asked a number of friends to help me with this 17-syllable exercise, and since more people responded than I imagined might, I'm happy to throw everybody into one batch. I hope you'll consider adding your own.
Wake with teeth grinding
Broken printers in my dreams
Is it fall term yet?
...
Wonderfully does
The cheating kid sit beside
The foreign student.
...
Capture my fresh thought
Embrace the joy of learning
Oops! There is no place to park.
...
Why teach before dawn?
The schedule I have now
Might kill me outright.
...
Happy instructor!
Brilliant students come to learn!
Brooklyn Bridge for Sale!
...
Cynical teachers
Make empty nests of classrooms
No one fills the blanks.
...
See the patient desk
Where no writer sits today.
Teaching interferes.
...
My boyfriend is back
But my new colleague is cute.
Fulbright time again?
...
Yesterday’s lessons
Drawn from your grad school notebooks
Will not work today.
...
How can we have lunch?
I teach five classes a day.
Remember? Adjunct!
...
Anybody here?
A fly buzzes in reply.
Wrong room once again.
...
Professor X smells
Of Axe spray and baby poop.
Contradictory.
...
Canadian schools
Give faculty more support.
Count your blessings, eh?
...
No, you can’t get in.
The class is already full.
Yeah, well, tell it to the Dean.
...
Library closes
When you most need to go in.
You buy a Kindle.
...
Fine colleague retires.
Her absence makes you wonder:
Have you allies left?
...
See the pretty girl!
She is way too young for you.
Better believe it.
...
Twenty years teaching
And still no health insurance.
Too late for law school?
...
Submit the novel
Wait for the agent’s reply.
Is this a way out?
...
Turn your laptop off
And watch the sun cross the sky
Time has no cursor.
..............
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