The Wisdom of Pigs is a small softcover book of haiga, the old Japanese pairing of a short poem with a picture, made the modern way by Iowa poet and artist Winston Everlast. Each page is a single square Polaroid frame: a three-line poem in strict 5-7-5, and the one image, out of many refused, that says what the words can't.

These are the seventeen Haiga from his collection in which a pig wandered into the frame. Some of the poems take on the proverbs you already know (lipstick on a pig, pearls before swine, the silk purse and the sow's ear, wrestling a pig in the mud) and give them a twist. Others just let the pig be the wisest one in the room. Steampunk pigs fly, a blind hog hunts acorns in sunglasses, piglets play in the deepest puddles, and a very large sow tells you to shut up and eat.

The poems are original and human-written; the images were made in collaboration with MidJourney AI, and each one stays in the version of machine vision that existed the day it was made. The book is 8 × 8 inches, softcover, 20 pages, printed on demand.

A gift for anyone who has loved a pig, kept one, or simply suspected it knew more than it let on. 

Find the full collection and more about Haiga at www.winstoneverlast.com