Hi. I’m Mick.
I created worku after months of messing around with making haiku from my Wordle guesses – using the guessed words in the exact order I played them. It started as something small and private, and it was fun.
It began in the late summer of 2025. My good friend Mark and I would share our Wordle scores in a friendly competition. At the same time, I had fallen in love with haiku earlier that spring and was writing at least one haiku a day. I was sending them to Mark because he’s kind and encouraging and would never say I sucked.
At some point, and honestly, I don’t remember who did it first, one of us made a haiku out of the Wordle words themselves.
And worku was born.
The first time I recorded it in Notes was September 9, 2025 (words from Wordle 1,543):
Mark (3)
First TRICK of the light,
the THIRD shadow starts to RAISE
questions in the dusk.
Mick (4)
A PLAIN start today
BIRCH and THRICE got me closer —
A K did the TRICK.
I think we did it again a few days later. And then again. And then every day after that.
(As I’m writing this, it’s December 13, 2025.)
I started inviting friends and family to join in, and a small cadre of worki now contribute daily. Eventually it felt like this quiet little practice might have a wider audience, so I began formalizing the game online and developing it as something that could also be played in person.
I love haiku for its strict 5–7–5 syllable constraint. A word-guessing game adds another layer of constraint that, for me, makes the experience more creative than a simple word puzzle. There’s something deeply satisfying about working within limits and still arriving at something pleasing, funny, surprising, or quietly true.
worku also opens the door to discovering haiku itself – a beautiful form that’s deceptively difficult to make meaningful and evocative, and so rewarding when the words finally fall into a silent stream (that’s seven syllables).
worku brings me joy in the making and joy in the reading.
Here’s one of my favorite worku, by worki Debbie Wilson. I think this may have been her first, from September 16:
I will CHARM the bird
Yes, it STOLE seeds from my hand
I am a LEFTY
It’s beautiful. Funny. Alive. This is why I worku.
I hope playing worku brings you as much joy as it brings me. The world can be a hard place, and every small joy may help it soften.
Mick
letters fall in line / from puzzle to quiet verse / worku every day