LS 5623 Advanced Literature for Young Adults

Mecum, Ryan. 2008. Zombie Haiku. How Books: Cincinnati, OH.
ISBN: 9781600610707

The Zombie Apocalypse has come and for one guy, he's about to join the zombie population. Chris Lynch finds this poetry journal in the detached hand of a zombie who's just bitten him. He has time before the change to scribble a note in the first few pages detailing what happened to him. The reader then goes on to read the journal of the original owner, who liked to describe his day in haiku. The journal's owner continues to write haiku even after he has turned into a zombie, giving the reader poetic detail even as he eats his own mother's brains.

If gross humor is the way to a young adults heart, then this is the book for them. Each page of the book is filled with two to four haiku, that is each poem is three lines long with alternating 5-7-5 syllables in each line. Each page of the book is also filled with bloody fingerprints, photos of decaying zombies, and unidentified green goo. As the poems begin with a man who is still alive, the reader gets the fun of anticipating what's going to happen as the man is puzzled when "Beth from accounting, is just sitting in her car, eating spaghetti." Yeah, that's not spaghetti. Then the reader is treated to the introspective thoughts of what zombies do think about, eating brains and losing body parts. The frame story of the man who finds the poetry journal adds a second layer of fun. He begins by telling his story and at the end he knows he's going to turn into a zombie, and he apparently keeps writing through the transition as he says he loves his wife and he wants to eat her brains.

As before, gross humor and violence. Not to mention the illustrations, while definitely enhancing the book, would make me hesitate to put this into hands younger than high school. However, for the age appropriate audience, this book has a lot of potential to show young adults that poetry is not always stodgy, classical, or deep.



Image taken from: http://www.metroactive.com/metro/07.30.08/gifs/Books_Zombie.jpg