Carrion Blue 555, 162 pages, paperback, $12.95

In a different dimension, 17th-century Japanese haiku master Matsuo Basho and American actor and producer Samuel L. Jackson somehow managed to have a lovechild. That lovechild is writer Josh Myers, and Haiku Fuck You is a celebration of the very distinctive voices of his parents. Myers slipped into the a persona he calls the Haiku Champ and wrote the entire book in a very short period of time (between November 17, 2015 and December 2, 2015). He wrote haiku at home, at work, and even in the bathroom and tackled the process, insulted the editor, and played with his readers in a way that made the final product a funny, feverish, surprisingly metatextual collection that demands to be read in a single seating.

Poetry, especially when operating under the constraints of one of its standardized forms, is usually hard to comprehend and, as anyone with an MFA in poetry will tell you, is serious business. In the case of Haiku Fuck You, the title pretty much sums up the author’s attitude toward the writing process and his general frame of mine while putting together the 160 pages of poetry that make up the book.

Myers stuck to the haiku format, but the content is uniquely his:

Off to a Great Start
A one and a two
and now a haiku, fuck you,
this haiku is done.

In fact, the voice in Haiku Fuck You is as strong and distinctive as that of a charismatic wrestler, which is probably why the author created a persona that would simplify the process of communication his feeling and through which it would be easier to deliver over-the-top content:

Pride
I’m the Haiku Champ.
Ain’t nobody can haiku
better than I can.

One of the best elements in this book is the continuity that some of the haiku offer. Myers thinks about a theme and then discusses it using haiku until his done, regardless of whether the discussion requires a haiku or three:

Laws
People who don’t read
can’t and shouldn’t be trusted.
Oh. Unless they’re blind.

Haiku In Braille
Wait, no. Braille, bitches.
No excuse not to read, then.
Unless you are dead.

Spooky Time
Hang on, can ghosts read?
Ghosts aren’t real, you knucklehead.
What am I doing.

On the surface, Haiku Fuck You is a dangerous joke that got out of hand and eventually became a book published by the editor Joseph Bouthiette Jr., who apparently gave Myers the idea and who is constantly berated and exposed throughout the text. However, if you scratch the surface of the book, a single layer underneath the humor lies an honest look at the writing process, a celebration of friendship, and one of the strangest, most creative literary experiments I’ve read this year.

Myers is a very talented author whose previous books have pushed against genre constraints, and this feels like a bizarre experiment performed by a manic scientist over the course of a few days. It will be interesting to see what he produces next. In the meantime, pick this up and devour it without pause.

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist, and book reviewer living in Austin, TX. He’s the author of Zero Saints, Gutmouth, Hungry Darkness, and a few other things no one will ever read. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.