Some of you may be familiar with Guy Clark’s Cold Dog Soup and his reference to “hillbilly haiku.”
Townes Van Zandt standin’ at the bar
Skinnin’ a Hollywood movie star
Can’t remember where he parked his car
Or to whom he lost the keys
Full of angst and hillbilly haiku
What’s a poor Ft. Worth boy to do
Go on rhyme somethin’ for em’ man
Show him how you really feel
I didn’t learn of this excellent song until several years after I had begun writing Hillbilly Haiku. I have dated some of my HH back to the year 2001. I had the idea at least a year before that, so I’ll call it circa the year 2000 for my beginning. Naturally, I wondered if I was first to use the term, so I looked up the detail of Clark’s song. It seems Clark’s album hit the streets in 1999. One would assume Clark and his co-writer, Mark Sanders, had thought of the term at least a year before they wrote it and Clark recorded it. Therefore, I have to credit either Clark or Sanders with the original use of term.