Each new issue of Prune Juice features a best-of-issue senryu chosen by one of the co-editors.
proxy war chills at Netflix
Tazeen Fatma, India
When we first came up with the idea of introducing a “Best of Issue” award for individual senryu, Antoinette, Peter, and I spoke at length about the qualities we felt constituted a truly great senryu. Ultimately, we settled upon five key criteria: sound, freshness, style, resonance, and, when applicable, humour (of course, not all senryu have to be funny, but we very much enjoy when they are). It’s not necessary for a piece to be strong in all of these areas – and, in fact, some poems are so strong in one respect that the other criteria become an afterthought – but we noticed that the senryu we most admired featured some attention to detail with all of these. It was with this rubric that we assessed the submissions for Issue 39, and it was with this rubric that I picked our first winner.
I should note that the submissions we received for our maiden issue as an editorial team were excellent, which made selecting just one senryu for this award an agonizing task. Special consideration went into many poems, including Jerome Berglund’s topical and well-crafted “masculinity” and Giorgio Bacchi’s hilarious and slightly perverse “new government” – both of which could have easily been selected. However, it was the strength of “proxy war” in all of the aforementioned areas that won out in the end.
At first glance, the poem might appear to be something of a bewildering “word salad.” But after multiple readings, the real skill behind the words starts to shine through. The use of cacophony complements the gravity and immediacy of the “proxy war” subject matter (need I even mention the blue-and-yellow elephant in the room?) The clever inversion of the phrase “Netflix and chill” (usually meant to refer to casual sex), instead produces an effect of uncomfortability or distress. The monoku formatting allows the reader to cluster the words at their own liberty and still arrive at the primary meaning. The central juxtaposition creates ample opportunities for re-readings. (I thought of, for example, macro sociopolitical issues and Ciceronian notions of “bread and circuses” in one reading, and was then drawn to the limited domestic scope and the commentary on streaming culture in the next.) And while this senryu might be more unsettling than it is funny, the truly ironic among us might find something darkly comedic in its larger implications about our current societal struggles and their growing inescapability.
With all this in mind, it was clear to me that Fatma had written something exceptional, and, as a result, I’m thrilled to announce her as the winner of Prune Juice’s inaugural “Best of Issue” award!
Aaron Barry, Co-Editor
May, 2023
a breakthrough
during the climax—
plan b
the aesthetics
of roadside murals
class divide
Aksheeya, India
old pond
the only kind of orgy
I’ve ever seen
Vidhi Ashar, India
h(AI)ku
depression pills for craters on the moon
Marilyn Ashbaugh, USA
amarbel blooming—
dad asks me
for the umpteenth loan
the huge scrotum
of a golden hamster—
new government
Giorgio Bacchi, Italy
lift door opening
the nanosecond
of eye contact
graduation day
a mother’s hat
at a jaunty angle
Ingrid Baluchi, North Macedonia
river swallowing the ten-faced night
Rowan Beckett, USA
morning writing
at the coffee shop
the smell of synonyms
cold front
I end up using
an antonym
Brad Bennett, USA
in Ukraine
another volley of missiles
adjusting the contrast
David A. Berger, USA
masculinity
parts per
million
Jerome Berglund, USA
his old olds
the smell of gas
when it was cheap
art opening
what we see
what we miss
Elizabeth Black, USA
clear night
the death jingle
of a video game
car sputtering
the irrelevance
of the moon
Shawn Blair, USA
just a pig
living in the year
of the rabbit
Ed Bremson, USA
waiting for confession
I notice
The Virgin’s thigh
Marc Brimble, Spain
endangered species
the carousel rider
almost a teenager
Randy Brooks, USA
bugs! he goes pesticidal
Susan Burch, USA
he reads the reviews
but never the books
blind date
Alanna C. Burke, USA
ginger tea
she prefers
abortion this time too
Ram Chandran, India
sunrise between high-rises ancestral wisdom
spring equinox
half-thinking to water
my plants
Hemapriya Chellappan, India
driving wind
a shopping bag explores
my world
Thomas Chockley, USA
play date hiding in a see-through bin
Bill Cooper, USA
v-formation
the purple side
of my brain
Sue Courtney, New Zealand
blood moon
siblings divide
the hospital bill
forever you and AI
Alvin B. Cruz, Philippines
clear skies
I bring along
my own clouds
Dan Curtis, Canada
neighbour’s funeral
my wife cries more
than the widow
Tracy Davidson, UK
fire drill
his false teeth
first
back porch
grandma’s story reduced
to pronouns and verbs
Pat Davis, USA
insomnia—
my daughter and I compare
cannabis products
elehna de sousa, Canada
fretting
before and after
Rachmaninoff
Julie Emerson, Canada
taking the long extraterrestrial view
Robert Epstein, USA
this is the life hey mayfly
Keith Evetts, UK
infinite stars
indefinite
i
David Kāwika Eyre, USA
economy class
for 10 hours
pretzelized
Susan Farner, USA
whipped cream—
turning an anathema
into blessing
my struggles with routine word ladder
Tazeen Fatma, India
The Big Dipper brothers compare the effects of Flomax
Bruce H. Feingold, USA
algorithm
selling me dog food
. . . new emptiness
B.A. France, USA
Wordle
I start with
C-H-E-A-T
fairy tales
mother takes the edge
off the wolf
Terri French, USA
work trip
the loneliness of
the neighborhood bar
Ben Gaa, USA
bed of straw man fallacy
Michael J. Galko, USA
out of the closet
my transformation
to spring shirts
Patrick Gallagher, USA
string theory
slipping a loop
and hopping aboard
shopping list
lottery ticket
a tin of beans
Mark Gilbert, UK
stretching
the truth
relaxed fit
my drive to work
next exit
Mars
LeRoy Gorman, Canada
before baby’s first breath the doctor’s callused hands
John S Green, USA
community garden
this year
more sunflowers
Johnnie Johnson Hafernik, USA
discarded laundry
the life-changing magic
of giving up
Mihan Han, Canada
airing secrets
deciphering our code
in the wet patch
Patricia Hawkhead, UK
the rooster crows his complicated coffee order
Kerry J Heckman, USA
first dry day
the sidewalk chalked
for hopscotch
Frank Higgins, USA
morning shower
I concuss myself
on the safety bar
Ruth Holzer, USA
outback highway
a thousand miles
of fatality markers
Louise Hopewell, Australia
empty nesters
we give our robot vacuum
a name
Lee Hudspeth, USA
ice storm
neighborisms
brewing
Jonathan Humphrey, USA
annual coup overthrowing the sock drawer
Peter Jastermsky, USA
grief season
i put the shell
back where it was
Amoolya Kamalnath, India
falling in love . . .
the softened edges
of his consonants
Julie Bloss Kelsey, USA
mental health workshop
again I cancel
my day off
Ian Kenney, Canada
hospice invoice:
date of arrival
date of departure
Ellen Kom, Canada
his reply
shorter than my question
creeping haze
Nadejda Kostadinova, Bulgaria
March Madness
even grandma checks
the DraftKings line
Douglas J. Lanzo, USA
unresponsive
the companion animal’s
first big test
Michael Henry Lee, USA
high school yearbook
silence
on the dead girl’s page
(b)older
Barrie Levine, USA
hunger moon
last lights go off
in the food court
Angela Leuck, Canada
lunch with the family
just the sound
of forks
Antonietta Losito, Italy
another classmate
I can’t remember
in the obits
all the news fit to print
straight to the recycle bin
Bob Lucky, Portugal
All Hallows Eve—
one more Wednesday
in the nightclub line
Roman Lyakhovetsky, Israel
game night
our daughter
takes over the world
Hannah Mahoney, USA
to my plate
the long journey
steelhead
Annette Makino, USA
living a life
of anonymity
monk’s hood lichen
Sharon Martina, USA
news of war
in the crack of the wall
this anonymous flower
Françoise Maurice, France
when she says Kerouac unidentified butterflies
Tanya McDonald, USA
barbie’s dreamhouse youths knock at the door
Sarah E. Metzler, USA
anthropocene the home I no longer recognize
Akhila Mohan CG, India
mermaid poison
my grandson
writes noir
Wilda Morris, USA
senior wellness check
another inch lost
but to where
Laurie D. Morrissey, USA
campaign promises
a broken record
for funds raised
Spyros Mylonas, USA
Sunday morning
grandmother brushes
her one tooth
Nika, Canada
transpacific storms dry tongues the other side
Subir Ningthouja, India
a gale blowing;
the glossy brochure
full of headstones
Sean O’Connor, Ireland
the stale smokiness of a stranger
library book
Debbie Olson, USA
exp: ides / Mar
Roland Packer, Canada
ambulance siren the beggar bows his head
Pravat Kumar Padhy, India
sundown
a village where everyone
wears my face
Stephanie Palombo, USA
he said she said the shit on the bed
Christopher Patchel, USA
gradatim
building
a
house
within
me
jingkieng jri
I connect
disconnect
& re-connect
Deepa Patil, India
snowblowers the men with their biggest
Marianne Paul, Canada
crazy quilt
scraps of my past
take on new colours
Jacquie Pearce, Canada
coming apart
at the seams – – –
fast fashion
petro c.k., USA
how cold
the meat I have to cook
for dinner
Kamil Plich, Germany
waning moron . . .
half-asleep I misread
the poem’s first line
Thomas Powell, Ireland
a high five
left hanging
situationship
under the influence superior mirage
Ganesh R., India
editor friend
workshopping a poem
she later rejects
Bryan Rickert, USA
no will inside the doctor’s empty can’t
the tales you tell unlocked by face
rs, USA
post-election dinner
a heap of curry leaves
on the trash plate
Srinivasa Rao Sambangi, India
rush hour
that feeling the other line
moves faster
Olivier Schopfer, Switzerland
his habit snorting another line of credit
Julie Schwerin, USA
turning teen to bulimia nervosa
fatty (acid) body shamed the nth time
her worthiness under the scalpel
Teji Sethi, India
milk and pill—
at least some things
work together
Richa Sharma, India
too shy
to make friends
a potted peony
Neena Singh, India
tall poppies
the C-Suite announces
more layoffs
Joshua St. Claire, USA
private room
mother’s smile safe
in a glass of water
Stephenie Story, USA
pastel skies . . .
a lifeless
receiving blanket
Jan Stretch, Canada
silent spring
the drip drip drip
of her taxotere
my religion of glottal stops om
Raghav Prashant Sundar, India
cellblock lighting for beginning readers
a neo-Boolean afraid to change lanes
Patrick Sweeney, Japan
first date
a day lost exploring
my pockets
Herb Tate, UK
in a world
of reality TV
reality
Angela Terry, USA
ski lift conversation passing ravens
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco, USA
one-minute phone call
from the favorite son
cicada shell
Elisa Theriana, Indonesia
magenta sky
putting a smile on
bruises
C. X. Turner, United Kingdom
feng shui
I rearrange the people
in my life
Prashanth V, India
parallel universe
my garage band
still rehearsing
Jeffrey Walthall, USA
insisting
he’s not being bullied
the black-eyed boy
Michael Dylan Welch, USA
balletic his tongue ballistic
crayon recycling so many melted hearts
Genevieve Wynand, Canada
Prune Juice Journal of Senryu & Related Forms 