About that Night

An American Sentence

Wavy Yellow Lines by Richard Reeve

The road’s yellow line turned wobbly, then smacked my cheek and cracked my glasses.


(Kudos to David [ben Alexander] at The Skeptic’s Kaddish for highlighting the American Sentence and Allen Ginsberg’s approach. As crisply defined in his post:

The requirements:

  1. Composed in one line;
  2. Syllabic, 17 syllables;
  3. Condensed, written with no unnecessary words or articles;
  4. Complete sentence or sentences;
  5. Includes a turn or enlightenment.”

((I especially like the inclusion of a “turn,” a concept that Ginsberg’s contemporary Charles Olson constantly identified as the third in his poetic triad typos, topos, tropos.)) )

5 thoughts on “About that Night

  1. Hadn’t come across this haiku variation before – wonderful!

    ▪◾◼◾▪▫◽◻◽▫▪◾◼◾▪▫◽◻◽▫▪◾◼◾▪
    ▫◽◻◽▫▪◾◼◾▪▫◽◻◽▫▪◾◼◾▪▫◽◻◽▫

What are your thoughts?