Senryu Theory Thoughts

 Should I live long enough, and after sufficiently learning my heritage language; Kouri-Vini (Louisiana Creole); ill begin the undertaking of learning Japan for the purposes of reading #senryu of every kind.

senryu can be elegant and sensual, they can be pithy and matter-of-fact. They can be biographical and diaristic. They can also be fragmented thoughts and feelings etc. they can appear to be statements...

reading Sunny (Sankyaku) Seki's #senryu collection, "Gardeners’ Pioneer Story in senryu" shows how the jotting down of fragmented thoughts/feelings/emotions/hopes/fears etc 1st and 2nd generation Japanese-Americans felt about life. From these examples, I see how simple they are

Most of us, know of #senryu and #haiku straight from Japanese tradition in Japan. IMO, few know the 'America' tradition of haikai poetry started by 1st/2nd Generation Japanese American everyday folk

the 'Father' of American Senryu, seems to have been Shinjiro 'Kaho' Honda. In 1910 or 1912, he became the leader of a senryu group in Yakima, the first such society in North America. 

That means the 'American' tradition of senryu is 112-114 years old.

Senryu (and even Modern Senryu) won't always be Haiku-ish...that is elegant and charming. Some Senryu will be mundane and seemingly insignificant. Something akin to someone quickly jotting down an event on the corner of a sheet of paper etc.

Professor Teruko Kumei, who has translated quite a few senryu written by 1st/2nd generation Japanese-American's; has said that #senryu are "A Record of Life and a Poem of Sentiments." THIS echoes the saying by 'Rokudaika' (6 great masters of senryu) senryu master...

...Sugimoto Monta who said, "Senryu are Humanity."

"Senryu is not seen as a high form of poetry in Japanese culture, but for Nikkei throughout Washington, it became an important cultural expression of their ethnic and immigrant identity."

"Senryu is not seen as a high form of poetry in Japanese culture, but for Nikkei throughout Washington, it became an important cultural expression of their ethnic and immigrant identity.

In 1910 or 1912, Shinjiro Honda became the leader of a senryu group in Yakima, the first such society in North America. After his wife’s death in 1927, Honda spent over a year in Japan (perhaps to take her cremated remains to her family); when he returned to Seattle, he focused his attention on poetry. In 1929, Honda and Shotei (a pen name) Yoshida co-founded the Hokubei Senryu Gosenkai (Senryu Society of North America) in Seattle. Gosenkai meant the group had no judge; instead, those gathered ranked the poems.

The Hokubei Senryu Gosenkai met weekly up to the time Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 disrupted their lives. The group’s selected poems were published in the senryu section of the Hokubei Jiji Shimbun (North American Times) and later in other newspapers. Shinjiro Honda’s efforts to legitimize immigrant senryu were ongoing and significant. According to Dr. Kumei:

As the senryu became popular, Honda sought recognition from authorities in Japan. Leading members of the society started contributing their senryu poems to the Senryu Kiyari Ginsha, one of the leading senryu reading societies in Tokyo. They regularly ranked high enough to obtain full membership and the Hokubei Senryu Gosenkai was recognized as the first branch society of the Kiyari Ginsha in the United States. Yakima Heigen Nihonjin-shi (History of the Japanese People in the Yakima Valley) expressed proudly that their immigrant senryu poets were recognized as equal or superior to senryu poets in Japan.

Honda was the editor of Hokubei Senryu, published in 1935 by Hokubei Senryu Gosenkai; a copy of this 320-page book is held at University of Washington Libraries. It is the first volume of senryu published in the United States. This volume commemorates the fiftieth meeting of Hokubei Senryu Gosenkai — this represents roughly eight meetings per year. The group held an exhibition in Seattle in 1938, organized by Honda.

If I could take a moment to put this in perspective: Shinjiro Honda, a widowed father employed as a live-in cook for a wealthy family in North Seattle, most likely worked six days a week. Yet his achievements would be significant for a full-time writer today: holding weekly meetings of Hokubei Senryu Gosenkai (which I can only assume were in Japantown, an eleven-mile journey from his residence), corresponding extensively with newspapers in the United States and Japan, editing a volume of poetry for publication, and organizing a conference — all while writing his own poetry and teaching numerous students.

Hokubei Senryu Gosenkai is still is active, a tangible legacy. The group is now based in Tacoma, with a membership made up of Japanese-speaking women who arrived here after World War II and married American citizens."

"American senryu" is senryu that developed in the

Meiji period in the Japanese immigrant community of the West Coast of North America (Ueno, 1964; Tamura, 1996). It was first established in 1912 by the Japanese immigrant, Kaho Honda, in Yakima, Washington (Ueno,

1964).