Haiku for Healing – The Role of Senryu

Haiku for Healing is an initiative of The Haiku Foundation (THF) examining the therapeutic potentials and benefits of haiku. In this succinct and powerful article, David Kelly, the well-known Irish poet and editor highlights the role of senryu. He accomplishes this with an eloquent and thoughtful critique of three poets who have addressed the harrowing issues of death, surgery and break-up.

Here is David’s compelling exposition:

Senryu might be considered as a domesticated form of haiku. Poems under this heading relate the emotional seasons of people. Published senryu cover a wide range of situations, sometimes with humour, sometimes with frankness, sometimes with ambiguity. Well-written senryu frequently serve a dual purpose; they allow the writer to address (and, presumably, to some extent at least, process) a difficult situation, yet they can also offer readers a reassurance that the problems which they face are not unique.

As senryu deal with emotions, they frequently require confrontation with that emotion. Accessing emotional pain is like opening a door. Once the door is open, you still need to make a conscious decision to walk through it. Like facing a demon, addressing pain takes courage. It exposes you to vulnerability. However, it may be the acceptance of that vulnerability which results in more powerful art.

This sounds quite daunting already, but the writing of excellent senryu requires even more. Having identified the difficulty and found a way of facing and addressing it, the poet needs to “get out of the way” of their poem. Although the experience may be one of enormous personal importance, the writer needs to offer readers sufficient space to explore the situation on their own. Letting go of the personal and allowing access to the general is far from easy.

There now follow poems which touch upon three difficult topics:

1 – Death (and its associated grief)

2 – Serious health diagnoses (and their treatment)

3 – The ending of relationships

The inclusion of these pieces is meant to show how addressing such difficult topics can not only empower the person suffering, but also offer support and solidarity for others facing similar circumstances.

switching off life support
we cannot know where
an electron is *1

I’m sure some people will think this an odd place to start. Death and its associated grief affect everyone differently. In this poem, we are immediately confronted by a terrible situation. It’s clear someone is about to die. There is no dancing around the details. And yet, what follows feels like it is offering hope. Lines 2 and 3 approximate Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Yet, for me, it also brings to mind the idea of death as “The Unknown Country” (from Shakespeare’s Hamlet) and the possibilities of the afterlife.

making do
with less
another surgery *2

Here, the writer gives us a poem summarising what must have been a very difficult time. The first two lines appear to be offering us a philosophical treatise on wealth or possessions. It’s the third line which hits hard. Suddenly, we appreciate the writer is talking about the loss of parts of their body!

As a writer it must have been tempting to include more detail, yet the simplicity and restraint of the language in this piece probably allows more readers to empathise with the situation. The dark humour feels in keeping with someone who is facing stark choices. I also sense a bravery within the writer, as they have been able to consider and accept the dramatic changes which lie ahead of them. I would like to think that such bravery might inspire other people who face similar challenges.

the over
and over
of over *3

So simple and yet so complete. This poem manages to capture the pain of a relationship ending and the cycling analytical thoughts associated with those situations. All that in just six words. There are millions of people who have been confronted by the end of a relationship. There could be all sorts of reasons. It may be planned, or it may be sudden. Despite people processing such things differently, this piece manages to focus on the generality of these situations. The finality of an ending. It certainly transported me back to some unhappy times. While it may seem a little masochistic, I regularly return to this senryu. Not because it has any relevance to recent situations, but because I admire its remarkable elegance.

Even if you are not facing any of the life challenges which these senryu address, I hope it is still possible to admire the way the authors have addressed their subject matter. Sometimes, the simple description of a problem can help to frame it. Whether the description is general or specific tends to be up to the individual. However, once the problem has a name, and an outline, that can make it a little more manageable.

Whether you are a writer or a reader, I hope the potential of the senryu form (i.e. haiku with human-centric themes) is evident. Attentive readers may have spotted that modern senryu do not always follow the classical 5-7-5 structure. If you are interested in seeing more examples of modern senryu, and I hope you are, please take a look at these online journals:

Failed Haiku

Prune Juice

cattails

Notes

*1. John Hawkhead (UK) – cattails (April 2022)

*2. Peggy Hale Bilbro (USA) – Prune Juice (March 2014)

*3. Helen Buckingham (UK) – moongarlic #5 (2015)

If you have any questions about Haiku for Healing, please use the Haiku for Healing contact form on our Contact page.

Bios

David J Kelly is currently the senryu editor at cattails. His Japanese short-form poetry has been widely published, anthologised and translated. His second collection, Small Hadron Divider (Red Moon Press 2020), received an Honorary Mention in the Touchstone Distinguished Books Awards 2020.

Sonam Chhoki finds the Japanese short-form poetry resonates with her Tibetan Buddhist upbringing. She is inspired by her father, Sonam Gyamtsho, the architect of Bhutan’s non-monastic modern education and by her mother, Chhoden Jangmu, who taught her: “Being a girl doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.” She is the principal editor, and co-editor of haibun for the online journal of Japanese short forms, cattails.

Her chapbook of haibun, The Lure of the Threshold was published in May 2021. Mapping Absences, a collaboration of haibun, tan bun and tanka prose with Mike Montreuil was published in 2019. Another collaboration with Geethanjali Rajan: Unexpected Gift was published in November 2021. She organised a year-long email course in 2024 for The Haiku Foundation’s Haiku for Parkinson’s project.

Read past Haiku for Healing posts here.

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