Senryu/Tanka - Japanese versions of the Blues

 * Relatedly loving your recent socialism alluding poems, I gotta get back to reading more theory asap, that stuff rocks worlds! ⚒️✨🤩

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2:13 AM

thank you!!!!! taking a page out of Marlene Mountain's book (with all her feminism, environmental, political) ku and some of the ku of senryu masters like Akira Tsuru and Aso Jiro who wrote 'personal' senryu but also what is known as 'Jiji Senryu' or 'Socialistic/Political focused ku)....so as I grow older and look around at our world...i see material for writing about our present realities as well as my personal stories (hope that makes sense). Its amazing how it used to be a time when reality writings (poetry and otherwise) were not a thing but most poetry and writings in my opinion were escapist and based on these ooey-gooey notions of alternate realities; kind of like soap operas and the like....but maybe with the rise of Pound and then the Beat Poets and such, reality and the 'what's actually going on' in a person's life became acceptable literature. All of a sudden it became hot to tell the truth of reality but in that reality and truth telling, one could kind of show a beautiful dimension to the 'shit-show' (if that makes sense.) For me with senryu and tanka (especially) i see them as a form of the Blues. The Blues in the Black tradition, doesn't bother painting pretty pictures of what's to come in the hereafter; but they deal with what is in all of its gross ugliness and discomfort as well as what is in all of its beauty, nonchalance, and humor. Blues sometimes gives a bit of hope; but it largely speaks to what is....AND often doesn't really offer any kind of resolutions (but to the people, that becomes alright.) its a strange tension but a beautiful one. Overall, I think our poetries should tell our individual and collective stories! Presenting our stories helps us see similarities as well as differences. Some present resolutions (unwittingly) and most times they don't (and that's ok.) largely the Blues are derived from depression and feeling low....but the Blues aren't always depressive. They are highly sensual (sense-filled....) the often override our intelligence and sometimes waltz with our intelligence. Blues are the vehicle of our emotions...our sensualities in all of their varieties and colors. It allows our senses to have THEIR say. I see tanka and senryu as Japanese representations of the Blues. 

thanks for listening to me riff. I hope some pieces made a little sense lol