How Do You Haiku?

Did you know that yesterday, April 17, was National Haiku Poetry Day? Well, we sure did—and to have a little fun, we decided to launch a contest on our Facebook page to see who could write the best nuclear energy-related haiku. Not sure how the contest would go over with our fans, I was surprised to see that people came out of the woodwork to share some of the most creative haikus I have ever seen, making this the start of more fun contests to come on our page!

To select a winner, we asked our Facebook friends and Twitter followers to ‘like’ their favorite haiku. This morning, we announced that the winning entry came from Southern Co.’s Leah Burch:

Energy we need,
for society to feed,
Nuclear indeed.

She won a “Nuclear. Clean Air Energy” water bottle, which I will be putting in the mail to her later this afternoon.

Now, if you recall from your 9th grade English classes, haikus follow a 5-7-5 format, meaning five syllables on the first and third lines, and seven syllables on the middle line. I spent most of the day yesterday counting to five or seven and also checking Merriam Webster’s dictionary on occasion to verify the number of syllables in a word.

Something I learned from one of our Facebook followers Chris Kolar is that the word “nuclear” has three syllables. Some say “nu-clear” or “nuke-U-lar” (remind you of a Bushism?), but Webster’s has it at “nu-cle-ar.” This came in handy for some folks, as a few had to re-submit their entries. But all in all, it was a fun activity for our Facebook friends and we hope to do this kind of thing more often (especially now that we know all of the hidden talent out there!).

Below is a sampling of the haiku entries, but visit our Facebook page (and LIKE us if you haven’t already!) to see the complete list. It’s good stuff!

From Mary Beth Ginder:

Leading the way to,
Energy independence,
Nuclear is key.

From Eric Phillips:

Nuclear fission
Green energy, no carbon
Electricity

From Lori Kasserman:

Nuclear is key,
to our energy future,
Clean, safe, effective.

From Tedd T.J. Mulholland Weitzman:

Safety first provides,
energy to serve our world.
Southern Nuclear.

From Matt Williams:

Nuclear power
Clean, safe and reliable
Big part of the mix.

From John Dobken:

Nuclear is green,
To the eye it is unseen
And certainly clean.

From AREVA’s Facebook page:

Energy hungry
Carbon dinosaur revenge
Fresh breath. Nuclear.

From Lori Smith-Nielsen:

Nuclear power
Renaissance is here to stay
Clean is good for all

From Lynnmarie P. Kinney:

Nuclear power
Mini, but mighty atom
Energize my world.

Thank you to all who participated in our contest!

Image credits: From the “Haiku and Happiness” blog.