“How Strangely Sweet”: Laryngitis and the Quiet Quirkiness of Senryu

00:00 - 16 Dec 2025

Although not nearly as ubiquitous as haiku, senryu is a Japanese poetic form that more loosely follows the familiar 5-7-5 syllable line arrangement. Traditionally, the older haiku form was used by masters such as Bashō to address themes of nature and the seasons, its quiet artistry evoking zen-like tranquility; in contrast, senryu, arising a century later, was conceived as entertainment, more like light verse, that often gently poked fun at human foibles. When haiku entered the English language via the work of imagist poets such as Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell, the US confessional tendency created perhaps a hybrid haiku-senryu variant, which is delightfully carried forward in “Hush.” The opening 3 lines are at once utterly concise and yet cleverly loaded, beginning an interplay between contemplative solemnity and confessional jest. The medical diagnosis of laryngitis, at once banal and yet potentially serious, provides an apt basis for such a double-natured study of the loss of one’s voice. “How strangely sweet/this vow of silence” the speaker ironically states, the whispery senryu form itself an embodiment of his near voicelessness and his attendant bemusement. The more portentous “laryngoscopy/sibilances rising/from the deep” mixes both the worry at, and the beauty in, what our bodies may contain. Yet the self-reflection and seasonal awareness of haiku and the witty urbanity of senryu are both expressed in the deft final lines: “first frost/more and more/I just smile,” reminding us that when poetry and medicine meet, we are soothed.