Wasabi Brothers Electronic Media Subgroup
Mangajin e-Zine Humorous Haiku

The Japanese have a word for it -- Senryu -- but it's just haiku with a humorous twist. We welcome your submissions, but offer only the transient pleasure of having one's work "published."

Computer Error Messages
First submitted to us by Mary Hesterman, these are alleged to have been created by Sony for a new operating system. (Mentions of "Windows," however, seem to contradict such origins. Sony has not been available for comment.)
Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that
 		A file that big?
It might be very useful
But now it is gone
Having been erased
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped 		Windows NT crashed
I am the Blue Screen of Death
No one hears your screams
A crash reduces
your expensive computer
to a simple stone. 		First snow, then silence
This thousand dollar screen dies
so beautifully.
The Web site you seek
cannot be located but
endless others exist 		Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred

If you want to know more about the origins of haiku than most people you'll meet at a sushi bar in Shinjuku, check out The Evolution of Haiku. If you're not that curious, below is a capsule summary of haiku and senryu.

Haiku:
is a type of unrhymed poetry that generally has a structure of 3 lines with a 5 - 7 - 5 syllable pattern, i.e. first line 5 syllables, second line 7 syllables, third line 5 syllables. If you're serious about it, there are lots of "rules" and conventions, but for the less serious there is senryu.

Senryu:
came into existence in the booming city of Edo (now Tokyo) in the late 1700s. While haiku were traditionally written about nature or the changing seasons, senryu began as observations of people, human nature, or society. It has evolved beyond that now, and any topic is fair game.

Senryu took its name from Karai Senryu (1718 - 1790), the most famous collector and publisher of senryu.

The 5 - 7 - 5 pattern is the same as haiku, and to the uninitiated the distinction might seem tenuous, but for practical purposes, if it's humorous, it's senryu.




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