A grook ( da, gruk) is a form of short aphoristic
poem
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...
or rhyming
aphorism
An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tra ...
, created by the Danish poet, designer, inventor and scientist
Piet Hein, who wrote over 10,000 of them, mostly in Danish. They have been published in Danish in 20 volumes. Each grook has a unique line drawing accompanying the words of the poem and providing additional meaning.
Some say that the name "''gruk''" is short for "''grin & suk''" (), but Piet Hein said he felt that the word had come out of thin air. The contemporary "''Hunden Grog''" ("Grog the Dog") stories by fellow cartoonist
Storm P. has, in public opinion, been regarded as an inspiration.
Piet Hein's ''gruks'' first started to appear in the daily newspaper "''
Politiken
''Politiken'' is a leading Danish daily broadsheet newspaper, published by JP/Politikens Hus in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was founded in 1884 and played a role in the formation of the Danish Social Liberal Party. Since 1970 it has been independe ...
''" shortly after the
Nazi Occupation
German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 ...
in April 1940 under the signature Kumbel Kumbell. The poems were meant as a spirit-building, yet slightly coded form of passive resistance. The grooks are multi-faceted and characterized by
irony
Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique.
Irony can be categorized into ...
,
paradox
A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...
, brevity, precise use of language, rhythm and
rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...
, and an often
satiric
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or ...
nature.
Beginning in the 1960s seven volumes of English translations of 53 grooks each were published and became popular in the U.S. counterculture of the time: Grooks (The MIT Press, 1966), Grooks 2 (Doubleday, 1968), Grooks 3 (Doubleday, 1970), Grooks 4 (Doubleday, 1973), Grooks 5 (Doubleday, 1973), Grooks VI (Borgen's, 1978), and Grooks VII (Borgen's, 1984).
A sampling of grooks:
THE ROAD TO WISDOM
The road to wisdom?—Well, it's plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again,
but less
and less
and less.
THE ETERNAL TWINS
Taking fun as simply fun
and earnestness in earnest
Shows how thoroughly thou none
of the two discernest.
PROBLEMS
Problems worthy
of attack
prove their worth
by hitting back.
TO SUM UP
It may be observed, in a general way,
that life would be better, distinctly
If more of the people with nothing to say
were able to say it succinctly.
References
* {{cite journal , last=Hicks , first=Jim , title=A Poet with a Slide Rule: Piet Hein Bestrides Art and Science , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lFYEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA55 , journal= Life , volume=51 , issue=16 , date=14 October 1966 , pages=55–66 , issn=0024-3019
External links
Grooks – LeptonicaPoetry Soup- Grook poems
Genres of poetry
Danish culture