Self-isolation - a senryu
August 8th In The Year of the Pandemic 2020 Today's poem is a senryu. I wrote this for an extremely prestigious competition a few months ago and it came joint third. The competition could not have been more extreme or prestigious had it been organized by the International College of the Prestigiuously Extreme! 😉 I was very pleased and surprised. Mind you, I always have been easily pleased although these days I'm finding that less and less surprises me. But on this occasion, I was. For those of you not familiar with the senryu or haiku forms, (from Wikipedia) both senryu and haiku are types of short-form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku/senryu consist of three phrases or lines that contain a kireji, or "cutting word" in a 5, 7, 5 syllabic pattern and a kigo, or seasonal reference. However, modern haiku vary widely on how closely they follow these traditional elements. Senryu tend to be more about human foibles, darkly cynical but not always....