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Senryu

Senryu poems consists of 5-7-5 Japanese syllables. It is a popular art form to express day-to-day lives of common people. Issei have used this art form from the early days of Japanese immigration to this date in various countries. It still is popular in Japan as well.

• 　ブラジル移民の川柳

• Teruko Kumei, "Crossing the Ocean, Dreaming of America, Dreaming of Japan: Transpacific Transformation of Japanese Immigrants in Senryu Poems; 1929–1941". The Japanese Journal of American Studies 16 (2005):81-110. (PDF)

"This paper explores Japanese immigrants’ senryu as historical documents in an attempt to shed some light on the ransformation of Japanese immigrants from "birds of passage" to the Issei, the first generation of Japanese Americans. In order to place the immigrant senryu in literary perspective, this essay will discuss what the Japanese immigrant writers advocated for their literature, followed by a brief history of senryu in the United States, and examples of senryu poems to see how the mmigrants personalized their life in the United States."