Misty's Reviews > Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry for Your...Brains

Zombie Haiku by Ryan Mecum
Rate this book
Clear rating

by
1124284
I reviewed this in full on my blog, but since it was a somewhat non-traditional review, I will include a snippet here. If you want the full thing, along with some bonus material, head over here...

The "story" unfolds via a man's poetry journal. Intending to document the glory of life, it ends up recording the downfall of civilization as he:
runs from zombies,
is bitten by zombies,
becomes a zombie,
bites and creates more zombies,
and embarks on the never-ending quest for fresh flesh and the all important zombie food source, brains.

Some of this anonymous man's poetry is only so-so (but what do you expect of a man who keeps a haiku poetry journal), and his pre-zombification haiku are as pretentious and pointless as you'd want them to be.
But when said poet gets bitten, things take a turn for the worse -- while his haiku takes a visceral turn for the better, in my opinion. Dripping blood and pus and various other fluids onto the pages of his precious journal, he goes in search of the first of a slew of meals - -I mean, victims. (I'm not going to tell you who the first victim is, but ugh).

I previewed a few of the disgustingickyawesome haiku on a previous teaser tuesday, but they were just the, *ahem* tip of the juicy cortex. Though there are throwaway bits, there are some moments of gross brilliance in here. Our mysterious zombie man retains his vocabulary pretty much intact (which somehow doesn't seem ridiculous), but everything becomes a little stilted and skewed, creating a nicely eerie, Other effect. And of course, some of his phrasing, reactions and desires are just hilarious.
6 likes · flag

Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read Zombie Haiku.
Sign In »

Reading Progress

September 13, 2009 – Shelved
Started Reading
September 20, 2009 – Finished Reading
September 21, 2009 – Shelved as: art
September 21, 2009 – Shelved as: horror-mystery-suspense-thriller
September 21, 2009 – Shelved as: humor
September 21, 2009 – Shelved as: own
September 21, 2009 – Shelved as: poetry
September 21, 2009 – Shelved as: read-in-2009
September 21, 2009 – Shelved as: supernatural-paranormal
September 30, 2009 – Shelved as: helluva-halloween
December 11, 2009 – Shelved as: zombies
February 4, 2010 – Shelved as: thanks-velvet
February 4, 2010 – Shelved as: won

Comments Showing 1-5 of 5 (5 new)

dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by Jeremy (new) - added it

Jeremy That's good enough for me. Horror movie fanatic here, and it is an interesting premise. How bad is the intro, or is it just his poetry that is bad?


Misty I think it's intentionally bad. It's some guys haiku journal, I mean, come on. But once he changes and the focus changes to, you know, brains and whatnot, it gets really funny. And the beginning poems only last maybe 4 or 5 pages.
Sometimes, there are moments, even in the zombie-ness, where it's just so-so, but then something comes along that is so "eww!" good, it makes up for it. Never great lit, but a great fun zombie read.


message 3: by JSou (new)

JSou I have to read this now after reading your review. I checked your blog out too and love it!


Misty Why, thank you, dear. :)


JG (Introverted Reader) Loved the blog review!


back to top