Challenge: Recession Haiku

(Update: For a medley of Recession Haiku, check out Friday's podcast.)

This is making the rounds among modern Greek PhDs at the University of Michigan (my poet friend says so). It's an interview of sorts with Stephen Ziliak, an economics professor who believes "an economics without poetry is an economics that is blind." What poet doesn't like to hear that? Ziliak is a big fan of haiku because it's an efficient form where economy of words is valued. He assigns haiku challenges for bonus points on exams and holds haiku workshops as part of a course on rhetoric in economics.

We're assigning you a challenge: Write a haiku for the recession and drop it in the comments. It's 17 syllables, in three lines, with a pattern of five syllables, seven syllables, and five more.

After the jump, the interview with Ziliak -- in haiku.

The Chronicle of Higher Education sat Ziliak down for an interview:

Q: Haiku might seem dumb

to bean counters and stuffed shirts --

Students disagree?

A: In this other world

wild orchids freely blossom --

haiku GDP.