Like many people, I’ve never been one to really get into poetry—I’m more likely to be found listening to Nirvana, watching American Idol, or checking out the latest bands than I am to be found studying ‘iambic pentameter’ or ‘trochaic tetrameter’ and the like.

However, if any of the teachers at my college had come up with a way to combine the two—well, then, they might just have really been able to capture my interest in what they were saying.

This, in fact, is the whole purpose of the website Haiku Reviewer, a site I found recently which I can’t get enough of. It takes the simple-yet-profound style of Japanese haiku writing (a short three-line poem of five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables), and applies it to modern music, with some TV shows, films, and books thrown in for good measure.

Instead of musing about the passing of time or reflecting on the ephemeral nature of beauty, as a lot of traditional Japanese poetry seems to do, the poems on Haiku Reviewer reflect on a selection of “cool music, great books, and interesting films.”

Each poem is an attempt to cram in as much information as possible into just seventeen syllables. It’s partly a game, partly creative writing, and partly a big challenge—and this is what I love about it.

Some work better than others—I like the ones about American Idol performances the best—and it’s possible to vote for the ones you like. It looks pretty straightforward at first, but once you start trying to write an actual haiku it’s definitely not as easy as it looks.

I haven’t contributed any of my ideas yet, but I would certainly like to. In fact, if my English teacher had ever shown me how to do this, then I might have had some of my haiku up there already!