If I had a bit more courage and a lot more scholarship, I would have discussed the similarities and differences between a haiku poem and a senryū poem in the introduction of my newly released book of poetry Short Verses & Other Curses: Haiku, Senryū, Tanka & Other Poetic, Artistic, & Photographic Miscellany
. However, seeing that I am woefully deficient in both, I will have to enlist someone adequately courageous and scholarly to discuss these subtleties for me.
What little I do think I know about these two popular Japanese poetical forms is that both are diminutive in structure yet powerful in purpose and meaning, with haiku typically involving nature settings and the zen-like moments often evoked by them and senryū typically involving the vagaries – and vulgarities – of the lives that we lead, often by employing humor and sarcasm. But then, what do I really know about it…
I have no answers
I know just that grass will grow
and that leaves will fall
For those of you who appreciate a little more scholarship and authority, here is what Richard Hass, former U.S. Poet Laureate, has to say about haiku in his beautifully edited and translated book The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, & Issa (Essential Poets)
. (I find no direct mention of senryū in the book; though it seems to me much of his discussion of haiku can also be applied to senryū as well.)
Robert Hass:
The insistence on time and place was crucial for writers of haiku. The seasonal reference was called kigo and a haiku was thought to be incomplete without it.
If the first level of a haiku is its location in nature, its second is almost always some implicit Buddhist reflection on nature.
When the hokku [what haiku were originally called] became detached from linked verse, it also cast off the room the tanka provided for drawing a moral (thought not all tanka do moralize, of course) and what was left was the irreducible mysteriousness of the images themselves.
There is so much to consider about these two subtle yet so often at the same time plain-spoken Japanese poetic forms. Considerations such as:
– Zen and its influence
– the influence of China and its poetry
– various poetic techniques found in much of traditional Japanese poetry, to include haiku and senryū, such as kake-kotoba (pivot words) and kireji (cutting words)
– the 5/7/5 structure and its relevance to the Western haiku poet
Hass’ book covers much of the list; however, instead of continuing to discuss about these poetic forms, let’s just experience some of the best of their kind and enjoy them as they are.
From THE ESSENTIAL HAIKU
Basho
Awake at night–
the sound of the water jar
cracking in the cold
A petal shower
of mountain roses,
and the sound of the rapids
How admirable!
to see lightning and not think
life is fleeting
Spring rain
leaking through the roof,
dripping from a wasps’ nest
Taking a nap,
feet planted
against a cool wall
Winter solitude —
in a world of one color
the sound of wind
Buson
Coolness —
the sound of the bell
as it leaves the bell
He’s on the porch,
to escape wife and kids —
how hot it is!
Cover my head
or my feet?
the winter quilt
Flowers offered to the Buddha
come floating
down the winter river
Issa
Don’t worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually
The man pulling radishes
pointed my way
with a radish
A dry riverbed
glimpsed
by lightning
All the time I pray to Buddha
I keep on
Killing mosquitos
Visiting graves,
the old dog
leads the way
No talent
and so no sin,
a winter day
From the website HUBPAGES
A horse farts
four or five suffer
on the ferry-boat
the matchmaker
speaks the sober truth
only when drunk
Zen priest
meditation finished
looking for fleas
The face of her husband
looking for a job —
she is tired of it
Richard Wright
The watching faces
as I walk the autumn road,
make me a traveler
An empty sickbed
an indented pillow
in weak winter sun
A falling petal
strikes one floating on the pond
and they both sink
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