https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Celeste6328181/There were several years in my life (when I had two or more children in diapers) that I only wrote Japanese forms. Why? Mostly because I could carry a poem around in my head and revise and rewrite it while whirling through very full days. Once I had time to actually sit down and write again, I realized that writing haiku, senyru and tanka had transformed all of my writing in whatever form I chose to write: Everything I wrote was more crystalized and clear and powerful. hourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Celeste6328181/700035...across the prairie. Prairie Surprise Amid cows grazing the Flint Hills grasses, there are camels in Kansas.https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Celeste6328181/637247Here is a clever way of explaining the structure of haiku to kids: Haiku is a very interesting type of poem, invented by the Japanese long, long ago. The poem has a prescription, or formula, by which it must be written. If you do not follow the formula, you do not have a haiku. Here it is, in the form of a haiku: First five syllables Second seven syllables Third five syllables What my little haiku means is that each line has a specific number of syllables, or beats. Count them. The reference...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Celeste6328181/628216I found this simple discription of the contrast of the two forms on the web at: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/haiku/senryu.html Here is a short quote that I found especially illuminating..... At the simplest level, haiku are verse about nature and humanity, written in a 5-7-5 syllable pattern, while senryu are haiku-like verse, not necessarily about nature, not necessarily in that pattern.https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Celeste6328181/627370Observing changes through the lense of haiku. Fall's Prairie Full with shades of brown, hints of green, summer's embers - grasses in autumn.https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Celeste6328181/626842More "driving across the prairie" poetry... Cloud A single cloud floats across prairie sky, casting shadow on the hills.https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Celeste6328181/626490The sun never sets, and things grow and grow and grow. From reading books, one doesn't focus on this hot phase of the tundra seasons.... Alaska Summer Strange day's ceaseless light embraces whirling flurries- dandelion snowhttps://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Celeste6328181/625845This is probably my favorite type of poem these days--as a working single mom I can compose one of these in my head with the goal of a witty or poignant or jocular comment on what or who I am observing in my environs.... Merriam Webster Dictionary describes senryu as: a 3-line unrhymed Japanese poem structurally similar to haiku but treating human nature usually in an ironic or satiric veinhttps://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Celeste6328181/624241Cowboy Walk him cool and rub him dry; clean stall; pitch hay--My horse always comes first.https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Celeste6328181/623345...across the prairie....page 9... Prairie Surprise Amid cows grazing the Flint Hills grasses, there are camels in Kansas.https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Celeste6328181/622663Little hand, holding mine, lets go—“Mommy, look! Up there! The moon’s folded.”