The 5–7–5-syllable senryû, like the hokku, derives from the longer verse form of renga. Unlike the hokku, however, which normally deals with natural or seasonal phenomena, the senryû is expected to deal with matters of human and social nature, often in a playful, satirical, or knowing manner. The hokku—called haiku today—carries a seasonal reference; the senryû does not have to.

The distinction between the two genres has been tenuous, however, from early on. In recent years the blurring of the differences has become such that Ônishi Yasuyo has said, “If someone asks me how senryû differ from haiku, I tell the inquirer that the only distinction that can be made is by author’s name”—that is, if the author is known to write haiku, the pieces he or she writes are haiku; if the author is known to write senryû, the pieces she or he writes are senryû. Ônishi herself is sometimes listed as a senryû poet, sometimes as a haiku poet.

Modern senryû, which dates from about the time of the haiku reform efforts of Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902), has taken such divergent perspectives as idealism, proletarianism, social realism, and individualism.

The images come from this fabulous post in French dedicated to Maupassant's 'Horla'.

Happy Senryuing!

'The Birth of Jesus' film from 'Give Up Yer Aul Sins' series. Bible stories interpreted by various children in their lovely Irish/Dublin accents, recorded for the radio sometime in the 60s. The cartoons were made and synchronised with voices much later, in the early noughties.I like the quirky faces, I like the sepia tone. Enjoy kids and grown-ups. Hope you do not take it too seriously, like some people did on youtube. It PROBABLY didn't happen this way. Or that.

...could stimulate the mind with its synaes­thesic effects and restore sensation to bodies dulled by routine... 

At the World’s Fair in Osaka in 1970 E.A.T. teamed up with Pepsi-Cola to produce an experi­mental and interactive environment. EAT turned the experience of visiting the pavilion into one of sensory overload. ‘Visual sounds’ were produced with coloured lasers and electronic music by composer Lowell Cross.

Visitors to the pavilion were able to turn their visit into an interactive experience with audio handsets that could pick up audio signals on loops fixed in the pavilion structure or create three-dimensional images of themselves using a pneumatic hemispheric mirror created by Whitman. The dome of the pavilion was cloaked in a perpetual cloud of artificial fog conceived by Frosty Myers as an allusion to Mount Fuji (much to the frustration of nearby food and souvenir vendors who demanded a fog trap).

the open, relaxed, sheltered environments created by a climate-controlling, light-transmitting dome might encourage the virtues of small lively towns, which have so conspicuously ceased to exist.

(source: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gsapp/BT/DOMES/OSAKA/o-infin.html)

Western writings on haiku frequently assert that in Basho's view a haiku is what is happening here and now. But Basho wrote no discourse on the principles of haiku and his works contain few traces of theory that we can draw upon to reconstruct his concepts. [None of my] colleagues who are specialists in the literature of Edo Period (1600-1868; Matsuo Basho lived from 1644 to 1694), hava found a clear statement of the "here and now" principle…

…Kagami Shiko was another of Basho's ten most important disciples. A chapter called "Sonentei yo-banashi" in his Fukuro-nikki reports a discussion about haiku by Kyorai in which he stated that haiku are concerned with "what is spontaneous on the spot." Shiko added that Basho praised that statement.

(source: http://www.meister-z.com/meister_z/BASHOBIO.htm)

Though he never wrote a treatise on the subject, there is no doubt that Basho conceived some unique ideas about poetry in his later years… [as] he began thinking about poetry in more serious, philosophical terms.
(The Master Haiku Poet Matsuo Basho, by Makoto Ueda)

My fellow haiku poet, Nomei asked me : " What is "sabi" ?"

I answered him: ‘ The "sabi" is a nuance of a poem. It is not a superficial loneliness. For example, even an old warrior clad in beautiful armour and an elegant helmet, combats bravely in a battlefield; and even an old man clad in a gold broidered costume, who attends an important party, carries with him the pathetic old age. The "sabi" exists in joyfulness as well as in gloominess.’ I cited one of my haiku as an example.

Two white-haired guards
of cherry blossoms
Two heads getting closer
to converse                             Kyorai

Our master, Bashô said : "You are right. Kyorai. It conveys well the nuance of sabi".

from Kyôrai-shô, on "sabi"

(source: http://www.geocities.jp/general_sasaki/kyoto-rakushisha-eng.html)

Sabi urges man to detach himself from worldly involvements; "lightness" makes it possible for him, after attaining that detachment, to return to the mundane world. Man lives amid the mire as a spiritual bystander. He does not escape the grievances of living; standing apart, he just smiles them away. Basho began writing under this principle and advised his students to emulate him…  Characteristic verses in [later] collections reject sentimentalism and take a calm, carefree attitude to the things of daily life. They often exude lighthearted humour.

(The Master Haiku Poet Matsuo Basho, by Makoto Ueda)

Bashō is a sterling example of the spiritual poet/scholar. He did his homework on the lore and history concerning the sites and temples he planned to visit on his three long hikes. The narrative drift of his haibun is like a parachute weighted with a haiku body under it. Or to put it another way: it is a pleasure to visit and describe precisely what one has seen ('haibun'); it is more challenging, after, to sense the essence of the seen, to sound it in the tiny crucible of a haiku.

(source: http://www.cipherjournal.com/html/eshleman_basho.html)