2009 Results, 2009 Competition Report, 2009 Judge’s Commentary
2008 Results, 2008 Competition Report, 2008 Judge’s Commentary
record heat
a soon-to-be mum
backs into a wave
Ron Moss, Tasmania, Australia
the sound of the sea
speaking to my mother
on her birthday
Lynne Rees (b. Wales) Antibes, France
scops owl...
she answers his song
across a river of stars
John Barlow, Liverpool, England
(Numbers in brackets denote how many poems made each list if more than one)
Thank you to everybody who sent in their poems and made the 2nd With Words International Online Haiku Competition a success. We weren’t sure how the recession would affect entries, but we received more than last year, and are able to send £90 to our chosen charity AGLIT in Malawi, and put £90 towards literacy projects in the South West of England. Thank you so much for all of your support.
A message to With Words from ANGELA HOGG
Tuesday, 9 Jun 2009
AGLIT is going well in Malawi. The AGLIT Team is now playing a key role in implementing the Malawi Basic education programme targeting children from 9 to 14 years who have missed out on school, as well as helping some of our original villages. Literacy is of course the core part of the curriculum. They desperately need the money.
best wishes
Angela
The 1st placed haiku wins £200 for Ron Moss. Second place is jointly awarded to Lynne Rees and John Barlow, who share the £50 prize money, and will each receive a With Words ‘Haiku Journal’ notebook.
We have racked up more countries than last year, and five continents – this year we received entries from Kenya and Mauritius (Africa); Australia and New Zealand (Australasia); U.S.A. (America); Ireland, Scotland, England, Spain, France, Germany, Hungary (Europe); and Singapore (Asia).
Please see further down for Alan’s judge’s report on the winning haiku.
NB: We’ll be making some changes to the 2010 competition. We would like to consult previous and prospective entrants about some of these changes. Please send an email with the subject line “Add Me” to list@withwords.org.uk to receive occasional communications from us and have your say. We do not pass your details on to anybody else, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Thank you!
The With Words Team (Alan, Karen, and Kathy).
record heat
a soon-to-be mum
backs into a wave
Ron Moss, Tasmania, Australia
Before I tell you how I fell in love with this haiku, let me tell you something of the mechanics that lie behind this poem, that provided the platform for my reaction.
This haiku starts as a useful example of the technique of ‘fragment and phrase’ (first coined by Jane Reichhold) in a haiku; the fragment is made up of one line that complements a two line section, or phrase. The fragment can be the first line, or the concluding line in a haiku.
Good haiku (singular & plural spelling) are balancing acts: a little bit of lyricism with a little bit of narrative to avoid being just ‘matter of fact’ description.
It’s important that the fragment isn’t merely an isolated marker of place and time; that the phrase part doesn’t lack cohesion and musicality, or we risk losing the lyricism that aids a haiku’s narrative.
The winning haiku has all of the above.
What was difficult for me, as a judge, was that I had to set aside my attraction to this poem, and force it go through all the multiple readings and processes that all the other anonymous poems I was given endured.
It is a tribute to this poem that it did indeed survive various and different rounds of selection against an unusually high degree of other well-written entries.
So there are some of the mechanics, and a hint at the intensity of the judging process.
Why did I fall in this love this poem? It isn’t the crafting of the poem, though that had to be present; it’s the sheer explosion of joy and realisation of the potential of life, through a metaphor of a young life growing inside a mother embracing that great reservoir of life we all apparently come from, the sea.
This poem didn’t even have to be about humans; there’s a wider focus that goes beyond, though there’s no doubt this poem is about a human mother!
This is an unsentimental, but nonetheless ‘knowing’ piece of writing.
At this time I had no idea who the author was, or what lay behind the haiku, but just like last year’s winning poem, there was something unsaid yet very definitely communicated, on a deep level, between writer and reader.
Ron Moss says:
"I was about to leave for Victoria as part of the Tasmanian Taskforce to help fight the remaining fires, and I remember seeing families on the beaches trying to keep cool in the heat. The image I wrote about was uplifting and a sign of hope and renewal. The sea is the womb of life for so many creatures and a place of great love for many."
ABC Hobart (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) interview with Hobart's haiku poet volunteer fire-fighter Ron Moss.
Victoria (Australia) Bushfires: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires
the sound of the sea
speaking to my mother
on her birthday
Lynne Rees (b. Wales) Antibes, France
On first reading this haiku about a daughter celebrating her mother’s birthday, I started to wonder, are they sitting down together over a cup of tea or a glass of wine, by the seaside or at some coastal picnic? Or could they simply be on the telephone, or more specifically a cell phone (mobile phone) that often picks up more background sounds than a speaker’s voice itself?
Has the daughter moved away from home and misses the way her mother speaks; a local accent the daughter has long lost? Or maybe her mother’s voice reminds her of the sea, where she lived her childhood?
A whole series of meanings came alive for me as I closely read the poem: it’s a whole history, not just of a family, but on a much wider focus. It’s also a simple joy for me, as a reader, to read again and again this tight magical language: the dozen words; the musicality of its sound and meaning; the mixed sensation of emotions and belonging.
Do we really need to know the whole truth behind this haiku, or can we stay
free to imagine for ourselves? I vote we enjoy the mystery.
scops owl...
she answers his song
across a river of stars
John Barlow, Liverpool, England
I had never heard of a scops owl before, I had to look it up, hear its song, and learn about their relationship with each other. It is no coincidence that haiku poets use ‘river of stars’ as a term, which means the Milky Way, because we are irrevocably linked to the water as we are to the stars.
Is it a female owl that is answering her mate, or is it in fact a human couple answering their song (be it a landline telephone or a cell phone)?
I can imagine we have two couples: two owls, and a human couple who are ‘night owls’; but the human couple separated by another kind of distance, whether because they are in different cities; countries; or by an argument that separated them on a night out.
It has been said that haiku are too short to contain metaphors, and that is one factor that can alienate poets trying their hand at haiku.
Whether intentional or incidental we have a haiku, most likely about a real incident i.e. owls calling to each other, that appears to be a metaphor for human relationships.
This haiku has a simple fragment that sets up a phrase with layers of possibilities,
a little like the Milky Way itself.
Alan Summers MA
Japan Times award winning writer
Japan Embassy Japan-UK 150 haiku & renga poet-in-residence
As the first two placed haiku were by the same author With Words decided to add an additional third prize this year, and this has been awarded jointly.
summer tapas
the head waiter touches
the waitress's stomach
John Barlow, Liverpool, England
single-lane bridge
a dog walker
directs the traffic
John Barlow, Liverpool, England
changing kimonos
between seasons...
my ordinary life
Pamela A. Babusci
Rochester, New York State, U.S.A.
Remembrance Day -
the child insists on a poppy
for her doll
André Surridge
Hamilton, New Zealand
It was really gratifying to receive so many entries for our inaugural international haiku competition, and that amongst all the recognised practitioners of the haiku poem, there were many that were new to us.
The competition was judged anonymously and Alan enjoyed every single entry. We had poems from twelve different countries, and three different continents: Argentina; Australia; Austria; England; France; Italy; Latvia; New Zealand; Portugal; Scotland; U.S.A.; and Wales. We look forward to exceeding this next year.
Thank you to everyone who entered.
The With Words Team (Alan, Karen and Kathy).
summer tapas
the head waiter touches
the waitress's stomach
John Barlow, Liverpool, England
The winning summer tapas haiku worked for me on several levels.
It has a subtle multi-sense approach preventing it from being merely a 'visual' poem; it evokes an emotion in me without 'telling me'; and I was free to interpret the presented picture even if my take wasn't necessarily a correct one. I went as far as wondering whether the waitress was pregnant with the head waiter's baby.
When a haiku poem is made up of a 'fragment and phrase' (first coined by Jane Reichhold) it's because the haiku is broken into two parts despite its already incredible shortness. This can be so often the power of such a brief poem, where it uses its very brevity to cause an overall 'single but complex image' out of two simply juxtaposed concrete images.
This poem uses the 'fragment' of the 'summer tapas' and the 'phrase' of the simple action to incredible effect.
single-lane bridge
a dog walker
directs the traffic
John Barlow, Liverpool, England
The second prize single-lane bridge haiku has a seemingly simple set up of concrete images. We're at a single-lane bridge with a dog walker who could be an eccentric directing the traffic. We don't really know if the traffic is heavy, or light.
Is the dog walker being a nuisance, or is it the traffic; could it be that not being an actual driver was the very factor useful in unsnarling a traffic jam; or is the dog walker causing a jam because it's a single-lane bridge for both pedestrians and motorists alike?
The haiku plays with us, there's no obvious joke or punch line and we can't quite pin it down. This isn't a convenient beginning, middle and end poem all neatly wrapped up for us: it's designed to take us a little out of our comfort zone.
This is an example of a well-crafted poem that invites thought.
changing kimonos
between seasons...
my ordinary life
Pamela A. Babusci
Rochester, New York State, U.S.A.
The 'changing kimonos' haiku contained a delicate poignancy, of 'sabi' (Japanese non-sad sadness/aloneness) and I was very moved by this poem. The third line is beautifully judged to complement the 'phrase' part of the haiku poem, without any heavy-handedness, but with a 'just so' of precision. It had a life beyond the poem; it was as if a bond had been created between the two of us, not just of poet and reader, but of shared humanity.
Remembrance Day -
the child insists on a poppy
for her doll
André Surridge
Hamilton, New Zealand
The 'Remembrance Day' haiku starts simply enough, but with a surprise in the 'phrase' part of the haiku. Many of us may think special memorial days are for 'last century's wars' but without preaching, only showing, this poem reminds me that wars are still very much with us. I found that the scene with the little girl insisting on a poppy for her doll was very potent.
In order to get this annual competition off to a good start, With Words has separately funded the third prize, and we have topped up the donation to our African charity to £100. Our U.K. charity will be announced at a later date.
It was important to us to find the 'right' literacy project to support abroad. We knew that even a small amount of money spent within Africa could achieve a lot, and after some searching we found AGLIT (Adolescent Girls Literacy Project) which is known locally in Malawi as 'Tsogolo la Abuthu - A Future for Girls Through Education.' AGLIT is run entirely by Malawian staff who've been trained for this.
AGLIT/MATE: http://www.mate-malawi.org.uk/
We are delighted to say that, with the help of everyone who entered, The With Words International Online Haiku Competition 2008 has funded twenty afternoon combined health and literacy lessons with teenage girls in Malawi.
2009 Results, 2009 Competition Report, 2009 Judge’s Commentary
2008 Results, 2008 Competition Report, 2008 Judge’s Commentary