Haiku, Senryū, and the Subtleties In Their Similarities and Differences

Short Verses & Other Curses – Pro... On Watch no.2

Haiku, Senryū, and the Subtleties In Their Similarities and Differences

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 on floating on the pond

and they both sink

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