haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering! 1st March 2025

Kala Ramesh

Mar 13 min read

Updated: Mar 3

haikaiTALKS: SENRYU | a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

host: Srinivasa Sambangi

22nd February 2025

haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

Your host for haikaiTALKS: Srinivas Sambangi

Senryu

First let’s look at how senryū is pronounced. Senryū is pronounced senryoo and in Japanese, the symbol over the u indicates that the vowel is elongated. For the sake of convenience, I will omit the symbol, but let’s remember the right pronunciation.

Both haiku and senryu originated from the earlier form renga. In the words of Makoto Ueda, senryu poet is someone who keenly studies various aspects of human condition and reports his findings in a humorous way. In short, the subject of haiku is nature and that of

senryu is human nature. It’s often difficult to draw a line between them because we find a mix of nature and human nature in what we write. As a thumb rule let’s remember that man in the nature is haiku and the nature of the man is senryu. Senryu is all about satire,

humor and a sharp eye about the ironies of life.

The poet credited with formalizing and popularising this form was Karai Hachiemon, better known by his pen name Karai Senryu. In my opinion he is to senryu as Shiki is to haiku, though Shiki was born much later.

As many of you are aware, Senryu doesn’t require a kigo, kire and for that matter any aesthetics of haiku. You may have a kire but it can be a run on sentence in three lines as well.

Michael Dylon Welch says “I think the poems that are haiku or senryu fall into four categories. 1. Serious nature poems (typically with a season word, but to my mind needn’t always have one) 2. Serious human centered poems 3. Humorous nature poems (rare) 4. Humorous human centered poems …” (I have taken only an extract)

Looking forward to read your senryu this week, preferably

category 4

Examples:

I grab the robber

and find I’ve caught

my own son

Karai Senryu

first cut—

the watermelon seller bites

into his profit

Kala Ramesh

history class

my girlfriend whispers

forget what happened

Srinivasa Rao Sambangi

References:

http://linkedin.com/pulse/haikus-cheeky-cousin-origins-senryu-

james-jim-hoadley-6rdmc/

https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/16d99d7baf91d567a3b69280e8472787.

pdf

https://www.graceguts.com/interviews/arrows-in-the-quiver-an-

interview-on-senryu

https://www.modernhaiku.org/issue44-1/MH44-1-Reichhold-Senryu-

2013.pdf

KIGO WORDS (Not applicable for the prompt this week!!)

Shall we please try to include a kigo word in all the poems we share here?

Give the season and the word—under your poem.

I'm quoting Lev Hart's request here: "This week’s goal is to compose two verses with toriawase, blending wabi, sabi, karumi, mono no aware, and/or yugen. Tell us which aesthetic concepts you mean to express in a line below the verse. Strive for originality. Avoid stock phrases and shopworn images."

For seasonal references, please check these lists:

“A Dictionary of Haiku Classified by Season Words with Traditional and Modern Methods,” by Jane Reichhold:

https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/7fb6654a1dfd1afef97369da920530f8.pdf

indian subcontinent SAIJIKI:

https://www.trivenihaikai.in/indian-saijiki

The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words:

http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/500ESWd.html

The World Kigo Database:

https://wkdkigodatabase03 .blogspot.com/

The Yuki Teikei Haiku Season Word List:

https://yths.org/season-word -list/

Thank you for this post, Srinivas.