Haiku

The Towson Chamber of Commerce is conducting a contest to find a slogan of eight or fewer words to promote the community. The winning entry in this haiku of civic advertising receives a $250 cash prize. As often happens with writers, that last bit really caught our eye. Alas, accepting a stipend, even from our friends at the chamber, might be perceived as a conflict of interest. But you, dear reader, are welcome to be inspired by our suggestions. Keep in mind, of course, that we avoided the predictable cliché (Best place in Central Baltimore County)

On the last Sunday in June, Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman, a Navy reservist stationed in Bahrain, e-mailed a poem to members of his online haiku group. He said he dedicated the poem to his friend Marianne, "whose good friend was killed this past week, somewhere south of Baghdad." late night call - the remains will arrive on Thursday the weather here not much different from Iraq Jones-Huffman might not have known the soldier who'd been killed, but "I'm sure I passed over the report in the daily summary," he wrote.

The Kings Contrivance Village Earth Day cleanup of the neighborhood's open space is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 29. Participants can sign in at Amherst House in the Kings Contrivance Village Center. They will receive a free T-shirt and a chance to enter a drawing for gift certificates. The rain date is April 12. Information: Hillary Bierce, 410-381-9617 or Anne Brinker, 410-381-9600. So many book clubs, so little time The east Columbia branch library's "Morning Books With Coffee" book club will discuss Don't Make a Scene, by Valerie Block, at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Amiri Baraka -- revolutionary poet, outspoken teacher, controversial orator, award-winning dramatist, black cultural nationalist and legendary loose cannon -- brought his entire arsenal of language to Wilde Lake High School yesterday.The 63-year-old firebrand took to the darkened stage before the polite audience of 300 suburban teen-agers to read his work, answer questions and do the job expected of every good poet -- disturb the peace."All you young people, don't just throw your life away," Baraka said slowly into the hidden microphone as the audience bristled with nervous laughter.

Eirik Ott was a Dungeons and Dragons kid, a teen-age outcast who was unliked and unnoticed by his peers. "I was the kid in the back of talented and gifted English [class] who never talked to anybody," Ott said. "I had no friends. I had no girlfriends. I could have been voted the person most likely to be forgotten -- if people had remembered me long enough to vote." For years, the 36-year-old poet, who also goes by the name Big Poppa E, has used his high-school experience as fodder for a number of creative and poignant works.

Bart Simpson meets the Buddha.That's what it was like at Jacobsville Elementary last week, where Noriko Nishiyama has been teaching Japanese culture to Fayetta Windsor's fourth-grade class."

In the cluttered, hyperactive Spy Game, Robert Redford employs the same hilariously enigmatic expressions he used in his hipster youth in movies like The Candidate (1972). And they're even better here, because he does it with supreme knowingness. As a 30-year CIA man who spends his last 24 hours before retirement trying to rescue a former protege (Brad Pitt) who has gone rogue and been arrested in China, Redford plays the smartest, most righteous man in the agency. He pulls it off with a quick, dry grace.

Home cooks: It's time to overcome your cyber-phobia and learn to love the Internet. It can do marvelous things for you, even if you're a technological turkey and a clumsy cook to boot.Now, don't panic. We, unlike all those other writers, are going to ++ be concrete here. We're going to go slowly, and we're going to define each term as we use it.I know, I know. From the outside, the Internet seems like a bottomless soup of data bits floating somewhere -- in outer space, maybe -- so scattered as to be worthless, like a library full of books whose pages have been blown loose by a hurricane.

I push hard against this womb now grown too small to nourish grown-up life * my roots are buried in now and forever as I reach for the moon * my words put all their feathers on to greet you but you merely hovered * handmaid, housemaid, bed maid or mate (does it matter) this is not my life * always the single bed -- the table set for -- one what is the meaning? * solitude can be a birthing place -- or tomb -- for such as you and me

The Columbia Art Center Galleries and the Little Patuxent Review, a local literary and arts magazine, will present "How to Touch Spring: A Conversation on Reading and Writing Haiku with Tim Singleton," from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Feb. 25 at the galleries, 6100 Foreland Garth. Light refreshments will be served. The discussion is the first in a new "salon" series of discussions by artists and writers being sponsored by the galleries and magazine. Everyone is welcome. Admission is free.