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Haiku and Senryu Jokes
Haiku and Senryu Jokes
What is haiku? What is senryu? What is the difference? I am asked these questions at least once every decade. So here’s the real deal. Both haiku and senryu are based on an ancient Japanese form of short poetry. Each is a three-line poem that may or may not rhyme.
Each short poem follows a specific format: Line 1 and Line 3 each contain 5 syllables. Line 2 has 7 syllables. That’s it. No deviation. Seventeen syllables in all. No more. No less. Because both types of poetry are so brief, they must capture a message in very few words. Imagery and pith reign.
How do they differ?
Traditional Japanese haiku generally refer to either a season or nature. Senryu are more concerned with relationships and human nature, and may be more satirical or ironic. Note: Beware of deviation or your haiku is psycho. And your senryu, an obscenity, too.
Here are my haiku/senryu creations with as much pith and humor as brevity can provide.
Can an elephant
Jump higher than a lamp post?
Yes! Lamp posts can’t jump!
What do you give deer
Who get gas from too much beer?
An Elka Seltzer.
Do you want to try
New sport – cross-country skiing?
Start with small country.
Beware! Alcohol
And calculus do not thrive.
Don’t drink and derive.
I like long, long trips
When they are taken by folks
Who tell lousy jokes.
Those birth control pills
Will be tax deductible
If they do not work.
Man says to his ‘shrink’
“I’m suicidal. Help me.”
“Then pay in advance!”
Early birds get worms.
But it is the second mouse
Who will get the cheese.
What is big and gray
And wrote gloomy poetry?
T. S. Elephant.
Two cannibals dine.
They are eating an old clown.
Does he taste funny?
Lead me not into
Temptation. I can find it
All by my own self.
Always wished to know:
How do you make a bandstand?
Take away its chairs!
Duck asks pharmacist,
"I would like some chap stick, please.
Put it on my bill."
A man with one arm
Will shop at a special place:
A secondhand store.
Yesterday it worked,
Today it is not working.
That's Windows for you!
© Copyright BJ Rakow, Ph.D. 2012. All rights reserved. Author, "Much of What You Know about Job Search Just Ain't So"
- Funny Pun – Number Twelve
Remember Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame? Do you know who took his place? - Mother Goose Haiku
Betcha never read Mother Goose haiku before. Me neither.
