Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Professor Norman E. Stafford and to Elizabeth Stafford for their assistance in revising the introduction and smoothing the English of this booklet. Domo arigato gozaimashita. 
Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Professor Norman E. Stafford and to Elizabeth Stafford for their assistance in revising the introduction and smoothing the English of this booklet. Domo arigato gozaimashita.
INTRODUCTION
This is a booklet of my senryu along with their English translation. It contains some fifty (and twenty more, only in Japanese) from those that I have written since I joined the Tsukubane and the Tokatsu Senryu Circles about five years ago. This booklet is meant to be a substitute for my name card to be given when I meet new friends abroad.
Now, for my English-speaking friends, a brief introduction of senryu would be in order. Senryu is a Japanese verse that has the same form as haiku, that is, lines of 5-7-5 syllables. While haiku has restrictions, such as the use of a term indicating a season and literary language, and the observation of objects in nature, senryu has no such restrictions. It is written in colloquial Japanese and focuses on human affairs in general. When it developed in the latter half of the 18th century, satire, humor, and wit characterized senryu. They still do in the 20th century, but senryu lacking these qualities are also being written now. However, all senryu of any variety deal directly with human beings, not with "Nature" but perhaps with "Human Nature."
Haiku derived from haikai, a series of linked verses beginning with lines of 5-7-5 syllables. Similarly, senryu developed from maekuzuke. Maekuzuke, which means phrase capping, was a literary amusement in which a phrase of 5-7-5 syllables was capped, or added to, a previously given phrase of 7-7 syllables to form a verse of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables, the form of tanka. (Sometimes the reverse was the case: a 7-7-syllable phrase was capped to a given 5-7-5-syllable phrase.) The capping phrase must match or illustrate the given phrase. For example, a 5-7-5-syllable capping phrase, Hahaoya wa, mottainaiga, damashiyoi, translated as "I'm sorry, Mom, but you are so easy to deceive" and said to himself by a prodigal son lamenting his actions toward his mother, was capped to a previously given 7-7-syllable phrase Kiotsukenikeri, Kiotsukenikeri: "Worry! Worry!" (in colloquial English) "Woe is me, so many ways I can be deceived." This particular 5-7-5-syllable string, the content of which applies to many fond mothers, is one instance of the verses that can be appreciated by themselves without the 7-7-syllable phrase. These came to be called senryu. This one above is, among Japanese readers, a well-known senryu.
Karai Hachiemon (1718-1790), a government official in the Asakusa area of Edo (now Tokyo), a respected judge of maekuzuke, used the pen name of "Senryu" ("river willow"), and the 5-7-5-syllable verse born from maekuzuke honors his contribution by bearing his name. Karai Senryu was instrumental in popularizing the senryu of his day, and the verses he chose were further screened by Goryoken Arubeshi (the editor's pen name meaning "Please excuse my screening"). These were published as 23 volumes of Haifu Yanagidaru during Hachiemon's lifetime. Though Haifu Yanagidaru continued to be published until volume 167, senryu graudaully declined in quality and came to be called kyoku (crazy verse). Later, Sakai Kuraki (1869-1945) and Inoue Kenkabo (1870-1934) revived senryu as a literary art, and other serious senryu writers have carried on their efforts even today.
A word about senryu rhythm may clarify some aspect of its structure. A Japanese syllable is made up of either one vowel or one consonant and a vowel. In Japanese there is no such combination of sounds as in "strong," a combination of four consonants and one vowel forming one syllable. Pronounced in the Japanese way, "strong" would be su-to-ro-n-gu (five syllables.) For some reason, a 5-7-5-syllable string creates a familiar rhythm for Japanese ears. In order to feel it, say ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, pausing at a comma, and giving no particular stress on any syllable. A 7-7-syllable string creates another familiar rhythm. English speakers produce their rhythm with stresses. Iambic is one example. So in composing an English senryu, I think a poet should be more concerned about the number of stresses than the number of syllables.
Senryu has as great a depth as haiku and is more accessible to beginners. Even novices can produce fairly good ones which make readers laugh or chuckle and say "Come to think of it, that's so true." Current senryu, too poetic for a novice to understand, make me murmur;
Poetical senryu---
They bother me because they're written
In Japanese (and not in Greek).
What follows is a novice's senryu, but if some readers nod and say, "That's so true!" I extend to them my heartfelt gratitude.
Spring 1996
Yasuhiro Kawamura
931-1, Nakamura 1-ku
Tsuchiura-shi, Ibaraki-ken 300
JAPAN
会議後に自分の科白直してる
寝苦しき夜旧便を読みなおす
天網恢恢ガラスの薄さ見逃さず
ちょいといい花は値段もそれなりに
九官鳥飼って女房を怒鳴れない（飼えばの話）
春野行く電車通勤小旅行
大きいのから減ってゆく笊の栗
ヒョットコの仮面の下の玉の汗
たっぷりと叱り最後は抱きしめる
重い荷を背負い肩幅広くなり
真剣な顔美しい人ばかり
白鳥になる日この子にきっと来る
故郷がテレビに出れば電話する
木の種類教えるように若葉もえ
コンピューターといえばたいてい納得し
日常に戻ろうとしてテレビ切る（オウム報道）
エアコンの無い教室で定年に
新緑にいついつまでもあこがれる
退職日だれとも握手したくなり
落ち穂 (Gleanings)
健康食ばかり食べてた敗戦後
（体育館の手抜き工事のガラス突風で割れる）