SPAM-ku is an archive of thousands upon thousands of haiku inspired by that that humble lunch meat we all know and love. It's been online for ten years, which probably means that cans of SPAM produced when it first went up are still sitting on people's shelves, ready and waiting to be opened and eaten. I particularly like this spam-ku by Froggie:
I envision a
world where all mankind shares SPAM
and none go without.
Beautiful! If that moved you, you might want to considering getting the companion book put together by Spam Haiku Archive Master John Nagamichi Cho, Spam-Ku: Tranquil Reflections on Luncheon Loaf.
The Wikipedia SPAM entry is short but makes for great reading: A Hormel official once stated that the original meaning of the name SPAM was "Shoulder of Pork And haM" —the SPAM Lite variety contains both pork and chicken. Other explanations of the origin of the term include the acronym "Specially Processed Assorted Meat","Spiced Pork And haM", "Specially Processed Army Meat", and "SPAre hAM"; there are also some less-than-serious explanations, such as "Synthetically Produced Artificial Meat" or "Stuff Posing As Meat". The current official expansion is the SP and AM were taken from "SPiced hAM" to win a $100 prize.
