The gentleman's name is Evan Peterson, a teacher from Florida who's lived in Seattle for the past year and retains an outsider's bemused perspective on our local eccentricities.

In his spare time, he writes what he calls "science fiction poetry," some of which finds its way onto his blog, poemocracy. For fun, he'll show up at your next event, ceremony, celebration, conference, or competition and compose spontaneous poetry.

At Kate McDermott's Art of the Pie class last week, down at Diane's Market Kitchen, he reeled off this 17-syllable creation, called, of course, a pie-ku:

The engagement's off, keep the ring.
I love you but
You cook with Crisco.

And a blend of culinary and Emerald City observations:

In Seattle, I learned
to make rain pies, their crusts
liberal but stiff