Try condensing 300 words of writing into a 17-syllable (or so) haiku! That’s what we did this week in the writing circle at Chittenden Correctional Facility. We wrote about summer trips sequestered in the back seats of wood-paneled station wagons with sweaty siblings, domestic squabbles erupting, and memories of dipping toes in the ocean. Then we took our prolific prose and fashioned three-line haikus. Enjoy some of them below:

Old coolers dragged out

station wagon clapboards

jelly shoes, dirty feet – TD

 

“You’re breathing my air!”

“I didn’t do it! It was them.”

“Not fair. Don’t really care.” -AA

 

I can smell the ocean

“Gramma, you’re the best!”

apple pie, vanilla ice cream  –MG

 

New York driver girl

jetting on a busy highway

crashes Gramma car  -MR

 

Have a picnic lunch

wind blowing gently on my face

girl getting thrown in mud  -BB

 

We run to the water

taste of salt is so strong

you want to spit quickly  -RJ