Culture Shock

You probably think you have plenty of time. It's only 17 syllables, right? You can whip out a hundred of those suckers in half an hour and squeak them in on the day of the deadline, yes? Don't be ridiculous. For Pete's sake, take some pride in your literary product, will you?

The Alibi's 14^th Annual haiku contest is coming up quick. Start now so you can polish your little stabs at Basho brilliance into the miracles of modern haiku engineering you want them to be. The deadline is just a couple weeks away, so hop to it.

Here are this year's categories:

• Best Traditional Haiku

• Best Albuquerque Haiku

• Best Haiku About Why You Hate Your Job

• Best Haiku About Fish Sticks

• Best Haiku Using the Most Letters of the Alphabet

• Best Haiku About the War in Iraq

• Best Haiku About Your First Sexual Experience

• Best Alibi Haiku

• Best Haiku About Why You Fear a Specific Species of Farm Animal

• Best Miscellaneous Haiku

As far as the rules go, we've been through this before—many, many times—but here's a little refresher for those of you who may have forgotten. Entries must be 17 syllables, broken into lines of 5-7-5. This year we're hiring a dozen of Santa's most detail-oriented elves—they come cheap in the off season—to count syllables to ensure maximum accuracy.

Submit a maximum of 10 haiku. In other words, you may submit 10 haiku in a single category, one haiku in each category, five haiku in two categories, etc., but no more than 10 total. Send paper mail entries to Alibi, 14^th Annual Haiku Contest, 2118 Central SE, #151, Albuquerque, NM 87106. Send e-mail entries to steve@alibi.com. (No attachments.) Deadline is Wednesday, August 24, at 5 p.m.

Include name and contact information. Winners will receive heaps of prizes, and their entries will be published in the Sept. 8 issue of the Alibi.