Not my eye.
smudge of blue
remains on my eye
the fun lingers
After our New Year’s party I had trouble getting my eyeshadow off. This little poem came to me as I was standing in front of the mirror. Technically it is a senryu, but no one seems to differentiate between the two any more. I have decided that this is my blog and since I feel there is a difference between senryu and haiku, I am going to call them what they are and put them in the appropriate category.
What kind of fun have you been having lately?
So, senryu is 3/5/4?
No, a senryu would be short long short (5/7/5). Americans have stopped worrying about hitting the numbers 5/7/5 because our syllables are not like the sound units in Japan and our haiku are much longer than theirs no matter what we do. Check out my What is Haiku? page at the top. Halfway down there is an explanation for senryu and
there is the explanation that Americans are no longer worried about their haiku being EXACTLY 5-7-5. They just need to be less than 17 syllables.
(Senryu deal with human and human emotions such as humor, where as haiku are only supposed to be about nature.)
Hi Symanntha – nice senryu. I like the tactile flavour that ‘fun’ gets in this. You’re spot on about the haiku/senryu difference – I have just been really lazy with the poems in my blog and piled them all into the haiku box
I tried to make up for it but putting an explanation of the difference in my ‘About’ page, much like you have. But really, there are no excuses for me…
Thank you for your comment alarming man!
From what I can tell most haiku journals and/or reviews today call it all haiku, but it just bothers me to do that. Everyone is free to do what feels right to them.