Frabjous Times

Unaligned chromosomes persist in HURP-depleted metaphase cells.

Normally dance choreographies never change once they are created. But Richard enjoys watching dances naturally evolve so he observed the way dancers were inclined to dance Metamora.

Q

I get it, this scifaiku something about biology, right?

A

Molecular biology, yes. But without the footnotes it is nothing more than a plain old senryu.

Q

What’s that?

A

Senryū. They’re the first cousin to haiku, with different rules governing subject matter and form. My point is that the verse itself does not actually carry the science fictional content in its words, the analog to the so-called season word in haiku.

Q

So is that a bad thing?

A

If you don’t like it, it’s bad, otherwise it passes. I prefer to regard the added information (the title and the footnotes) as part of the poetic experience so I think it’s okay. After all, scifaiku (and fantasyku and horrorku) have to set up a lot more backstory generally than mainstream non-genre poetry, so if that has to slop out into the title and the footnotes, so be it. Maybe it is cheating, but I personally like the value added by the extra stuff.

Q

Still, it seems as if you can get the science or science fiction content into the poem by shorthand or something, without sticking it in the title (which I know that real haiku don’t have), that’s got to be better.

A

I won’t disagree with that. But tell me, did you at least get the pun in this one?

Q

(blank look)?

A

Look up cell on Wikipedia and see what it has to say about the word’s etymology, when you get a chance. It’s a tiny little joke of mine.

The second in a projected series of discussions on poetry.

The RNA language is written in an alphabet of four letters (A, C, G, U), grouped into words three letters long, called triplets or codons. Each of the 64 codons specifies one of 20 amino acids or else serves as a punctuation mark signaling the end of a message. That’s all there is to the code. But a nagging question has never been put to rest: Why this particular code, rather than some other?