an open field

family court the lawyer’s tie lolls against his gut Sharon Elyse Dean What can save a haiku from being mediocre – a strong image from the natural world – is what, by its absence, can make a senryu [1] feel like a weak gag. But the best senryu manage to focus on aspects of the human experience and encapsulate ideas that carry importance for the reader as well as the writer. S haron ’s senryu paints an amusing picture for us to appreciate in lines 2 and 3: the image of a tubby lawyer, suggested by the word gut and the roundness and floppiness in the sound of lolls . Scenes from American court movies run through my mind: the despicable prosecutor or the self-satisfied defence attorney. But the first line sets the scene more particularly: this is a family court , a place where ordinary lives, lives like our own, are decided upon. In fact, although the expression in the first line – family court – is very familiar, it is only when it is isolated in a piece of art like this...