Haiku Contest

Previous Prize Winners

The Results of the 4th HIA Haiku Contest

Haiku in Japanese

Japanese haiku are translated into English by Miyashita Emiko & Lee Gurga.

Judge

Inahata Tteiko, Matsuzawa Akira, Takaha Shugyo, Kogure Gohei, Bojo Nakako, Abe Kanichi, Nagata Ryutaro, Yamazaki Hisao, Kurahashi Yoson, Tsunemoto Ushio, Okubo Hakuson, Miyadu Akihiko, Yoshimura Hisashi, Yamada Hiroko, Kato Koko, Watanabe Masaru

Grand Prize of HIA

I recall my own encounter with a similar situation in Miyako, where octopuses were auctioned at a fish sale. I agree with this haiku. Wriggling is exactly what the octopuses do when they try to move, grabbing and releasing things with their legs. While an octopus is sold, it twists itself around the arm of the auctioneer, till it is sold and is untangled. I selected this haiku for the first place because the poet had not picked other fancy fish but the octopus, and he had captured the nature of this creature very successfully.(Ushio Tsunemoto)

Grand Prize of HIA

This haiku reminds me of a film, Rashomon directed by Akira Kurosawa. Rashomon Gate was built to protect the capital in Nara and in Kyoto. In a haiku, when the subject is a large thing, it is effective to match something small in order to create a movement in it. It was a nice idea to match a column of swarming mosquitoes to this grand gate. A deep, nostalgic haiku.(Ushio Tsunemoto)

Grand Prize of HIA

Mowing grass is an autumn kigo (seasonal word). There are hundreds of haiku that say something has happened after mowing grass, but here the poet is saying that the earth has become lighter, which is a gigantic idea! I think it is fine to use exaggeration such as this in haiku. A very interesting haiku. (Ushio Tsunemoto)

Prize of HIA

The haiku reminded me of Boncho and Ayako Hosomiﾕs haiku, both depicting the countrified Nanao. This haiku evokes in me the countrified landscape and the snug inn of the nearby hot spring.(Ushio Tsunemoto)

Prize of HIA

Interesting! We live in a global society now. It is hard to tell which one is a passenger for an international line and which is for a domestic line these days. This haiku has a surprise.(Ushio Tsunemoto)

Prize of Association of Haiku Poets

Wonderful! This waterfall is in South America, however, it reminds me of the Niagara Falls. Its width, the clouds of water vapor. The earth has left us such a beauty of nature! There is no chaff in this writing.(Ushio Tsunemoto)

Prize of Modern Haiku Association

Indeed, I can realize the scene in this haiku. The poet is carefully avoiding saying the Anniversary of the Termination of the War, but lightly says instead End of the War Day with the feeling of let's not forget about the day. It truly touches me, the hotness in the iron bar on this special day.(Ushio Tsunemoto)

Prize of Association of Japanese Classical Haiku

The Tower of Pisa has been restored recently, but it was not restored to stand vertically. 'slanting the sky of the fine autumn day', indeed is a powerful expression.(Ushio Tsunemoto)

Haiku in non-Japanese

Judge

Hoshino Tsunehiko, Shibota Shunichi

Special Prize

The cargo ship probably stays in port, light in the water after unloading cargoes. The haiku, however, can give readers the impression that the ship floats very lightly, not because it was unloaded, but because it lies in the flock of gulls.
The contrast between the ship and a flock of white birds is wonderfully effective. It is worthy of notice that there is no verb in the poem. (Hoshino Tsunehiko)

The haiku is humorous and to some extent, self-contemptuous. I, one scarecrow in the village is not lazy but, perhaps, cannot get a job. I was inclined to sympathetically think so when I knew the author was in the Serbian Republic.
Although the poem is quite brief, it cleverly forms a sort of couplet. (Hoshino Tsunehiko)

The delicate butterfly is caught in strong, swirling wind and might die. Summer, the season of growth and vivid life, has ended because autumn arrived one day early. This poignant haiku contrasts big, small, strong and delicate and reminds us that our desires or intentions are powerless against nature. In Japan the butterfly is the kigo of spring but elsewhere it can also represent summer. (Shibota Shunichi)

This haiku about a tiny wing being powerless in the wind also conveys the suggestion of autumn before the bitter cold of a cruel winter and the idea that small creatures (and people) get swept up in war and hurt - even when they have nothing to do with war. This is a very traditional style of image but it works well and perhaps represents the present thinking of Americans who have been threatened by terrorism since the 11th of September 2001. (Shibota Shunichi)

Honorable Mentions