Query as haiku

Look what turned up in the mailbag this morning!

Recently, I read a fascinating comment about the query letter: "...because it is short, it's like the haiku of writing. It has to convey a vivid and memorable impression with as few words as possible."

What a wonderful image! And that sparked an idea. I looked over several haiku by Bashō, the famed Japanese poet of the Edo era, and tried to imagine which author might have used which haiku for one of their query letters. Here goes!

Nothing in the cry
of cicadas suggests they
are about to die

(James Patterson)

Wrapping dumplings in
bamboo leaves, with one finger
she tidies her hair

(Margaret Atwood)

A weathered skeleton

in windy fields of memory,

piercing like a knife

(The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold)

I would like to use
that scarecrow's tattered clothes
in this midnight frost 

(To be used by Neil Gaiman if he ever decides to re-imagine The Wizard of Oz)

 

here's the source