For Making's Sake

I love reminders to make art for art’s sake. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been prone to a tender-hearted and possibly grandiose urgency to save this person—or this situation or this world—now! As if I could wave a wand that puts food in everyone’s belly or write a poem that opens every heart.

It helps me to be reminded that not everything has to serve some utilitarian function. Nor does everything (or anything) I create have to be the best I’ve ever done or absolutely original or omg so cutting edge. I can just create art for art’s sake. (And so can you!) What’s more, we can create art for creating’s sake. For the sake of making. For the sake of the process, the experience.

Product shmoduct. Outcome shmoutcome.

A couple of days ago, I wrote a handful of silly haikus simply for silliness’s sake. I’m sharing them with you, not as high art, but as an invitation—or if you need it, as permission. These haikus will not ignite some world-saving revolution. They will not bend the arc of poetry toward something glorious and new. But I giggled while writing them. I giggled while reading them to my sister. I had fun.

Fun is not a thing we must earn by first checking a long list of boxes or slogging through a sufficient dose of misery. Play, laughter, creativity, spontaneity—these are wired into us. They are part of our essential nature. Let’s not shove them to the end of some factory line. Let’s not postpone fun. Let’s not postpone joy. Not when we can let them suffuse the process—whatever process we may be in. What if fun/play/joy/rest—all those things that kids know instinctively how to do—can spark and fuel and feed whatever revolution you are working toward, be it personal, spiritual, relational, or political? Let’s not save all the good stuff as wilted little carrots for the end.

As proof that I’m practicing what I preach (most of the time), here are my giggly haikus. They are not high art. I didn’t create them for art’s sake. I created them for creating’s sake, for making’s sake, for laughter’s sake—for my own sake.

If you’d like, try to guess what experience precipitated them!

Business Review (In Three Haikus)

How much is that sweet
in the window? The one with
the long, hairless tail?


Pastries, cookies, plague— 
are the sprinkles shit or fleas?
Nothing for me please.


Delicious display
with a rat scampering through—
zero star review. 

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

The Prompt

In case you didn’t already piece this together, the haikus above were inspired by a moment, a few nights ago, when I stood with my family outside of a high-end bakery, drooling at the glorious pastries and cookies on display in the illuminated window. A sudden movement caught our eyes—a rat scuttering between the treats, right there in the window display. As you can imagine, it scuttled our plans to return to the bakery the next morning!

If you would like a prompt to play with today (please do play!), then I invite you to write a business review of your own—whether as a haiku or in some other form. Cast back in your memory and recall your best experience ever with a business (store, restaurant, hotel, salon, etc). Then recall your worst experience ever. How about your weirdest? Your most surprising? Choose one to focus on. What made it great/terrible/weird/surprising? Conjure up as many sensory details as you can recall. Let these inspire and breathe life into your poem—whatever shape or form it takes. If you would like to share what you write, please do! But you don’t have to—not here, not anywhere. It’s okay to simply play for the sake of playing, make for the sake of making. Then again . . . sharing for the sake of sharing is cool, too.

As always, thank you so much for being here!