As we’re about to enter the season of giving and sharing, it seems an especially appropriate time to invite print and Web readers of The Courier-Journal to take part in three endeavors that rely heavily on reader participation and interaction.
Read on and take part!
Time for holiday haiku
I know, I know, you’ve been waiting for this all year.
OK, maybe you’ve been waiting since you carved the Thanksgiving turkey a couple days ago.
Let’s go to TomKat’s medieval wedding trumpeters (yep, they had ‘em) for the announcement . . . .
Dah-dah-dah-daaaahhhh!
It’s time for the Third Annual Holiday Haiku Fest in which readers offer up their takes on 2006 news events and/or news coverage thereof, in the handy, dandy little poems known as haiku.
For the uninitiated, haiku are three-line poems (rhyme not necessary) of 17 syllables five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second, five syllables in the third line.
A recap of haiku fest rules:
Your pieces must be original, and any news subject is OK local, regional, national, international, sports, pop culture, politics, whatever, serious or not serious. But keep it clean. I’ll repeat my warning of the past two years: No “Nantucket” nonsense.
You may send as many haiku as you wish, but if we receive a similar outpouring as the last couple of years we probably can’t print in the paper more than one per reader. We may be able to post more online. Send a bunch, if you feel like it, and we’ll see.
Given our big-time foray into Web territory, if you’d like to send video clips of yourself reciting, interpreting or otherwise delivering your haiku for mass- and multi-media purposes, send it in and we’ll see what we can do with it.
As inspiration for your undertaking, a handful of the blizzard of haiku received last year:
(speaking of TomKat)
Couch-jumping buffoon
Declares love for nubile minx.
Oprah needs Scotchgard
(on war)
Merriam Webster
Must revise; “torture,” it seems,
Is not what they deemed.
(on politics, presciently)
We’ll clean up this mess.
That was the promise we heard.
Voters, it’s your turn!
(on the media)
Will there be something
other than murder on the
front page of Metro?
(on life)
More of a puzzle,
A Medicare prescription,
Or DaVinci Code?
(on the holidays)
Holiday fruitcake
lovingly made. Thank goodness
I’m on a diet.
Please include your name, address and daytime phone number with your submissions. No anonymous haiku here.
Mail your haiku to moi, c/o The Courier Journal, 525 W. Broadway, P.O. Box 740031, Louisville, Ky. 40201-7431; fax: c/o me at (502) 582-4610; or e-mail: pplatt@courier-journal.com
Deadline is Friday, Dec. 15. We’ll print and post your haiku on Christmas Eve.
Start your writing!
A new Web site for young Moms
Mom Matters is a newly launched C-J Web page whose content is reflected in its title: information, resources and chat for younger Moms in the C-J readership area.
Moderated by former C-J staff writer Beverly Bartlett, herself a mother of two children, the site offers women a cyber-meeting place to share insights and observations about parenthood, womanhood and other aspects of life, from the practical to the philosophical.
The site includes access to a calendar of area family-friendly events, forums designed for parents of children of various developmental stages, stories and features produced especially for the Web site, as well as stories from the newspaper.
Connection and community are the points of the site.
It was created with the help of C-J readers and Web visitors, younger Moms who told us what would draw them and keep them coming back to a Web site designed especially for them.
And so Mom Matters reflects and depends on the participation of its readers and users.
It’s an early work in progress, with much room to grow.
Visit it at courier-journal.com/moms and let me know what you think.
Join the Reader News Network
About three years ago, I invited readers who are news junkies to take part in an interactive, outreach effort via e-mail that has been part of a media credibility project of the Associated Press Managing Editors organization.
The point was and is to draw readers and their perspectives into newsroom discussions and stories via the Internet or in person.
Since then, C-J readers have taken part in national reports about graphic war photos and media accuracy. They have contributed to C-J news stories about global warming, health care and cell-phone use by children. And I’ve asked them to provide reader perspective about issues ranging from presidential elections and arts coverage.
Sound like something you’d be interested in doing?
With the online version of this column, you’ll find the link to the questionnaire you need to fill out to take part in this ongoing news effort, and I’ll take it from there. I promise I’ll be in touch.
