Literary Works - Senryu

ニューヨーク、

さむいおてんき

ゆきだるま。

New York,

Cold weather

Snowmen.

This first senryu is about winter in New York. The poem alludes to the cold weather and snowmen that are typical of the image we come up with when we think of winter. "New York" is the katakana word in this poem. By placing New York as the first line of the poem, the blockiness of the katakana word clearly directs attention to New York as the topic of this poem. This lets the reader have an initial image of New York in his/her mind. The subsequent lines build upon that image of New York one layer at a time: by first adding in the cold weather and then finally adding in the snowmen. The resulting image is one of a New York winter that is blanketed with snow.

~

にほんごの

ビールのミルク...

なんですか。

Japan's

Milk of beer...

What?

This poem is about an interesting Japanese drink that I read about on the Internet. This drink is called "Bilk" and it is a drink that combines milk with beer into one. I'm not sure how this dink tastes but it sounds like a very...unique idea. The katakana in this poem are the two drinks and appears in the middle line. This usage of katakana brings attention to the focal point of the poem - the two drinks that are mixed together in a creative way. Using katakana to represent these two items also brings out the "foreignness" of this original idea.

~

おんなのこ、

ロゼとダラスが

ありません。

Girl,

Roses and dollars

I don't have.

This last senryu is about a boy who is telling a girl that he doesn't have any flowers or money to give her. By saying that he does not have any flower or money for her, he is showing that he is not trying to win her over by giving her material things. In this case, the use of katakana in this poem is a representation of something that is unneeded. The words rose and money are written in katakana and stresses the shallowness of those objects.

-Simon