Poetry Friday--Prune Juice

The latest issue of Prune Juice: Journal of Senryu and Kyoka Issue 3, Winter 2010, is now available online by clicking here.

You're not familiar with the terms senryu and kyoka? Simply put, a senryu has the same format as a haiku, but rather than Nature, it has human nature as its subject--human nature with all its foibles! Prune Juice's editor Liam Wilkinson describes it this way:

There it is, leaning on the mantelpiece, watching us go about our daily lives with a smirk stretched across its face.

In Japan, a kyoka is also known as a "mad" or "crazy" poem. As a senryu is to haiku, a kyoka is to tanka. For an explanation of the 5-lined tanka (a.k.a. waka), click here.

Below are two representative poems.

local landfill--
all the things
we had to have

                  John Soules

he scrutinizes
their every play;
I'm in it
for the commercials
and their firm Super Bowl butts

                  Janet Lynn Davis

I highly recommend spending some time with this delightful online journal!

Liam Wilkerson also edits 3LIGHTS: Journal of Haiku and Related Forms. The journal replaces the online gallery which I wrote about for a Poetry Friday post last year.

The Poetry Friday Round-Up for this week is hosted by Jone at Check It Out. Stop by!