It was this last activity that inspired a design student named Fred Truman to program an online environment for rearranging letter tiles into haikus. It's called Kigonagrams, a name that Truman explains as
the combination of anagrams (or obviously bananagrams) and kigo, which are words or phrases associated with a particular season used in Japanese poetry.Kigonagrams starts off by giving you a randomly selected haiku, like this:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRDALfueMGTf_yzDrvkkBPzLPyg2_PpA4xWHDNDeZJP48wQfXmaQkIHHF4Mnptvv_zasVefICaXoNlh7whONq2WyUZoMk73AfGQyQfsW4iylYg1WOsSJEJ0nygvjbvWDWY8R4uorHRwgSC/s400/kigonagrams+-+EASING+THE+MOON.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghyphenhyphenj9ezXRCekUtbQzuGARHKPHtL9nRLNOXdp8F9XO6K4jNEvdhsh8Ib-DJ01MqKLJz8EHRXpbWfxNw_FA51uk6JrRmkDsjeRnMXI5Hc3lOIZkFMME7x7gSgCaPAuHqPv-z-AH1mqyI2XhL/s400/SO+I+ENGAGE+IN+A+SONOROUS+STORY+ENLIGHTENMENT.jpg)
The controls for resetting the tiles to their original positions and requesting a new set of tiles are way at the bottom of the page.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLJ5_symNp7kM5DulsyOx7ZDuC5zmT4nwjN6ch9iDf2wpjsK4dQMP_OgiU1MYdL8UvY9j5juIo0mQxqN9Q95uqmYpe-RBjiT4P4b4eLZgIsA76Y1Lwf4iHssDT2R47IakEWcZ8Xq23N-o4/s400/kigonagrams+logo.jpg)
The grayed-out "tweet your haiku @kigonagrams" is an encouragement, but also an indication of a possible future feature.
The most fun part for me was dragging one tile into others and watching as a bunch of tiles got pushed out of position.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDSvhTkwILV1l7Qftw-A1qFsHO44hD7HOrZjoA5mRlUN8_cm49iUEoOXCAn8xLy94u1cQqP5CQcsclsfq9innBaQpnWutV8Z2OhQN2V1KHt0-yttdTjv1uXig7zlo01CgGqhZ-tTOooLID/s400/kigonajumble.jpg)
Further reading:
- My previous excursions into Bananagrams poems and word game poetry