Senryū (pronounced, sen-ryoo) are 3-line, 17-syllable (5-7-5) Japanese poems. I know that sounds like haiku, but, unlike haiku, these poems focus on human nature, irony, and humor rather than nature. They often highlight life's daily foibles with wit.
Senryū comment on aspects of everyday life, often in a humorous or ribald fashion. These were usually composed by townsfolk and submitted to poetry competitions run by professional judges or tenja. The best would be awarded prizes and compiled in anthologies. The most famous tenja was Karai Senryū (1718-1790), and it is from him that the poems take their name.
Two senryu by Karai Senyru
I grab the robber
and find I’ve caught
my own son.
As a man fond of both
loose women and senryu —
please remember me.
Some masters of haiku also wrote senryū.
A woman showing
a charcoal-seller his face,
in a mirror
- Buson
In those three lines, you should expect the occassional surprise.
The stone saint
is kissed on the mouth
by a slug.
Haiku is described as “17 syllables” in English because English speakers substituted syllables for the Japanese unit on (also called mora), which is the actual building block of Japanese. A haiku is traditionally 17 morae, not 17 syllables.
In comparison, senryu uses the same 3-line 5/7/5 pattern, but it does not include a seasonal word (kigo) and uses a more colloquial language. The last line holds the meaning of the poem and is funny or surprising, a bit like the punchline of a joke.
A butterfly
that goes straight
has free time.
No matter how
sorry you are,
the teacup is broken.
Ecstatic at being
set free,
the bird collides with a tree.
Watching a plane
the kid playing third base
misses the ball
— Sandy J. Anderson
combing my hair—
the face in the mirror
is my mother's
- Sharon Peeples
I’m told I look young
That’s how I know
I’m not young anymore
It is difficult for an English speaker to "see" the morae. Take the Japanese word for book: “hon.” This word has one syllable for us but two morae, the “ho” and the “n.”
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