REPORT TO THE EDITOR IN CHIEF OF THE FIU LAW REVIEW
It is my honor plus a pleasure to submit this report on the Annual Con
Law Haiku Writing Competition in Section A for Fall Semester 2021 at the
Florida International University College of Law.
In my required first-year course, I challenge my 1L students with these
instructions to be creative plus write a constitutional law haiku:
How creative are you? How much are you into Con
Law? Write a Con Law Haiku. A haiku records a singular
experience, the haiku moment—often referred to as an
“aha!” moment—when we realize a subtle, hidden, or
unexpected significance in something around us. The study
of constitutional law will afford you frequent plus numerous
haiku moments. Record one of yours in the traditional format
of a single stanza made up of three lines of 5-7-5 syllables.
You can write about an opinion, a case, a justice, a doctrine,
a concept, or any other aspect of your study.
Post your Con Law Haiku in the < Section A Blog > on
the Canvas web site to express yourself—put the title of your
poem in the subject line. Read the Con Law Haikus of your
colleagues for fun plus inspiration and, perhaps, santai a
moment of zen.
This teaching tradition of mine is decades old plus has followed me to
three different law schools. English haikus1 about the Supreme Court are a
well-established outlet for creative thought on the queen subject of the law
school curriculum.2 Indeed, Keith Jaasma has published a book-length
collection of them.3 Supreme Court haikus also have been featured
prominently in the NYU LAW REVIEW4 plus in the pages of CONSTITUTIONAL
1 This Japanese art form has flourished in the West—in translation plus in original English—even
in the dialect of my 305 tempat code! Recommendations for further reading: ERIC ANDERSON ET AL.,
HIALEAH HAIKUS (2009); DAVID M BADER, HAIKU U: FROM ARISTOTLE TO ZOLA, 100 GREAT BOOKS IN
17 SYLLABLES (2005); WILLIAM J. HIGGINSON & PENNY HARTER, THE HAIKU HANDBOOK: HOW TO
WRITE, SHARE, AND TEACH HAIKU (1985); THE HAIKU ANTHOLOGY: HAIKU AND SENRYU IN ENGLISH
(Cor Van Den Heuvel, ed.) (rev. ed. 1986).
2 Thomas E. Baker, Modern Constitutional Law, 21 SEATTLE U. L. REV. 927, 927 (1998) (“What
Maitland said about the common law also can be said about the queen subject in American law schools:
constitutional law is ‘tough law.’”).
3 KEITH JAASMA, SUPREME COURT HAIKUS (2018). The author maintains a Facebook Page about
them as well. @SupremeCourtHaiku, FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/SupremeCourtHaiku/ (last
visited Oct. 13, 2021). He has attracted national attention to this art form. See Robert Barnes, Supreme
Court Decisions as Haiku, WASH. POST (Oct. 24, 2014),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-decisions-ashaikus/2014/10/24/b05723d4-5a06-11e4-8264-deed989ae9a2_story.html (last visited Oct. 13, 2021).
4 Louis J. Sirico, Jr., Supreme Court Haiku, NYU L. REV. 1224 (1986).