Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera

"David Trinidad turns the paste jewels of pop art into the real thing."—James Schuyler

"In David Trinidad's Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera, the moment-by-moment particulars of traditional haiku collide with the time-stretching serial narratives of contemporary soap operas. As Trinidad's haiku chart the changing seasons, don't be surprised if the snow falling under moonlight is artificial, dumped by overworked stagehands off-camera. Seventeen syllables mediated by television—the continuing story of Peyton Place making a high-def splash in Basho's pond."—Tony Trigilio

"The world of art can appear anywhere, so it's no wonder to me that Trinidad finds something worthwhile in producing a haiku for each of the episodes of Peyton Place and that, embedded in the strange curl of Dorothy Malone's hairdo, is yet one more space still untouched and undefined by a poet."—Manuel Muñoz

This is the continuing story of Peyton Place. One irreverent haiku for each of the over five hundred prime time 1960s era "adult" soap opera episodes. Fraught relationships, courtroom cliffhangers, and sensational storylines are condensed into seventeen-syllable episodes, as stereotypic characters weather the passing TV seasons. This haiku soap epic is ingenious, funny, and totally addictive. Excerpts from Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera have been selected by Denise Duhamel for inclusion in Best American Poetry, 2013.