The haiku is a powerful poetic form derived from the original Japanese style, with its structured three lines of five, seven and five syllables. David Lanoue, haiku poet and author, defines it as: “A one-breath poem that discovers connection.” They’re beautiful but not something you expect to find many of in the FT.
However, in a fit of experimentation earlier this year, we created an algorithm that can identify all the fragments of text in FT articles that (entirely accidentally) match the syllable pattern. While most of the matches are nonsense, with some human effort we can pick out those that seem to work as haiku in their own right. Suddenly, Martin Wolf is a poet. So is Lucy Kellaway. Now, at the end of 2016, we can present the year as seen by our writers (albeit unintentionally) in haiku.
By Chris Gathercole, founder of the FT Hidden Haiku project
***
Is the turbulence
to quote Macbeth a tale told
by an idiot
Carney’s monetary inactivity is right response
Martin Wolf, January 21 2016
***
introducing lakes
moving tatty villages
if necessary
Screen test: how to create French-style espaliers in the garden
Robin Lane Fox, January 29 2016
***
but designer pigs
maybe that’s what Beijing means
by the new normal
The pampered pigs and happy hens set to save China’s economy
Patti Waldmeir, February 1 2016
***
Burns advised a mouse
the best laid schemes too often
lead to grief and pain
Market turmoil: trail of broken trades forces a rethink
Dan McCrum, Miles Johnson and David Sheppard, February 12 2016
***
Keynesian slowdown
in a world economy
trying to spend less
The consequences of cheap oil
Tim Harford, February 19 2016
***
yet I realise
that in clinging on to it
I’m an oddity
I don’t want to change the world and nor should you
Lucy Kellaway, February 21 2016
***
no one is punished
while families have to keep
their pain to themselves
Venezuela risks a descent into chaos
Andres Schipani, April 10 2016
***
written on deadline
by someone way off his beat
and out of his depth
Journalists such as Boris Johnson don’t make good prime ministers
Alan Beattie, June 29 2016
***
a cold hard lesson
in the demon of hubris
born of delusion
David Miliband joins Brexit debate
David Miliband, April 11 2016
***
as she speaks the sun
breaks through the rain-darkened sky
illuminating
Glanbia CEO Siobhán Talbot is Ireland’s most senior businesswoman
Vincent Boland, May 8 2016
***
an arrow pointing
unceremoniously
towards his remains
Postcard from . . . Cambodia
Harriet Fitch Little, June 3 2016
***
telling you again now
in front of everyone
to stop doing it
Head slapping Benny Hill-style is a nuisance
Lucy Kellaway, July 5 2016
***
The sound of gunshots
explosions and the sonic
boom of fighter jets
Erdogan claims Turkey coup is crushed
FT reporters, July 16 2016
***
organisations
reflect the priorities
of the powerful
Free Lunch: Play the ball, not the man
Martin Sandbu, August 12 2016
***
when you know something
when you care about something
and you say nothing
Transcript of Alan Rusbridger’s Lunch with the FT with Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden, September 12 2016
***
grim countenances
hiding their secret losses
and others smiling
Are these the world’s worst cities?
David Tang, May 5 2016
***
more white older more
male more religious and more
likely to be blue
Free Lunch: Trump supporters on the couch
Martin Sandbu, August 17 2016
***
felt uncomfortably
like someone had forgotten
to write the ending
Harry Potter and the Brexit aftermath — coming soon to UK theatre
Rosemary Squire, September 15 2016
***
spinning cranks and wheels
unaware that they would lead
to electric trains
Nano-machine inventors win Nobel chemistry prize
Clive Cookson, October 5 2016
***
For many members
a second referendum
cannot come too soon
SNP members divided on referendum timing
Mure Dickie and Henry Mance, October 14 2016
***
bewildering mix
knitted together only
with populism
Prepare for a reversal of monetary rule under President Trump
Gillian Tett, November 10 2016
***
jetting round the world
greasing up to dictators
and making millions
Tony Blair plans his second coming
Robert Shrimsley, November 24 2016
***
She does her thing cuts
her body sits for hours
in agony burns
Lunch with the FT: radical performance artist Marina Abramovic
Jan Dalley, December 2 2016
***
am just old enough
to remember teenage life
before mobile phones
Sometimes talking, not tech, is the answer to social problems
Helen Lewis, December 2 2016
***
Illustrations by Cat O’Neil
Sample the FT’s top stories for a week
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