This year jury received 582 haiku written by 122 authors.
Judges were: Prof. Ruzica Mokos and Prof. Vida Pust Skrgulja

1st Prize

in noon light
a brown pine needle
spinning above the ferns

Marshall Hryciuk, Toronto, Canada

2nd Prize:

calm water -
a fallen leaf of a willow
rocking the Moon

Dusko Matas, Zagreb, Croatia

3rd Prize:

Winter dawn.
Sunrays clinking
on icicles.

Antonina Kazalamheva, Bulgaria

Commendments:

weeding the garden--
the smell of the sun
on my fingers

Jim Kacian, Winchester VA USA

Nigt.
A star
in the horse's eye.

Alexandra Ivoylova, Bulgaria

foggy morning--
the gravedigger alone
with crows

Tony A. Thompson, Lufkin, Texas U.S.A.

a begging man-
the snow flakes don't melt
in his palm

Turgay Uceren, Turska

cherry's fruit
wrapped in the song
of nigtingale

Stjepan Rozic, Croatia

step by step,
fog climbing
the rocks

Darrell Lindsey, Nacogdoches, Texas USA

old couple on the walk
a red poppy trembles
in the breeze

Alenka Zorman, Ljubljana, Slovenija

winter sunset
silhouettes of crows
line the roof ridge

Sue Mill, Australia

White peak in the pond –
the first snowflake is touching
another snowflake

Eduard ŢARĂ, Romania

spring thaw
a piece of a great-river
caught in the ice-jam

Carmel Lively Westerman, Yuma, Arizona, USA

That star, above,
so distant, so tiny,
has its own name.

Aleksandar Prokopiev, Macedonia

a silky glow:
cornfields come alive
sunrise

Huguette R.-M. Simmonds, Tunapuna, Trinidad & Tobago,West Indies

Posted by Graham Nunn at 01:54 PM | Permalink

Hailstone Haiku Circle site (a blog) on the net is at http://www.hailhaiku.blogspot.com

Posted by Graham Nunn at 01:50 PM | Permalink

Pardalote Press has a new web-site. It's very attractive, easy to use and well worth a visit.

http://www.pardalote.com.au

Posted by Beverley George at 08:20 AM | Permalink

Entry procedure for the 2006 James W Hackett International Haiku Award

Haiku must be original, in English, not previously published nor under consideration for publication or entered in any other competition.

Deadline: in hand by 30 November 2006.

Award: Two winning haiku will be chosen, each by a separate adjudicator (see below).
The winning authors will each receive a prize of £70 and …
One year’s free subscription to The British Haiku Society.
Winning and commended haiku will be published in Volume 17 no. 2 of Blithe Spirit
and here on the BHS website

Apart from publication connected with competition results, copyright is retained by the authors.

Each haiku must be printed or typed onto three separate 5 x 3 in (125 x 75 mm) sheets or cards. Entrant's name and address to be on the back of only one sheet/card in each set of three.

Submissions to be sent by post to Hackett Award, Newton House, Holt Rd, North Elmham, Norfolk NR20 5JQ, UK.

An entry must be accompanied by the flat rate entry fee of £3.00 or US$6.00 for up to three haiku, and £1.00 or US$2.00 per haiku thereafter.
Cheques and Orders should be made payable to 'British Haiku Society'
Due to high currency and clearance charges, payment can only be accepted in Sterling by cheque drawn on a UK bank branch, by British Postal Order, in Sterling / US cash, or by International Money Order.
All BHS Committee Members are debarred from entry.
For notification of results, please enclose a self-addressed envelope with appropriate UK stamp, or two IRCs, (which must be stamped by the issuing office) or US$1.00 (so, US$7 in bills covers both entry fee and notification).

Adjudication: A shortlist will be prepared by a BHS sub-Committee from anonymous copies of the submissions.
James W Hackett and David Cobb will then each choose a winning poem and up to three commended poems.

James W Hackett needs no introduction to serious readers of haiku, but see his website: https://www.hacketthaiku.com which contains all of his haiku, zen poems, and other spiritually-focused writings. Included also are correspondence with Blyth and Henderson, paintings, calligraphy and photos.
David Cobb is a former President of the BHS and works to establish connections with haiku poets world wide. He gave the opening address at the Inaugural European Haiku Festival in Germany in 2005. The original BHS, James W Hackett Award grew out of correspondence between David Cobb and James Hackett in 1991.

BHS and James W Hackett regret they cannot enter into correspondence about the Hackett Award decisions and that entries cannot be returned.

Posted by Graham Nunn at 06:05 PM | Permalink

When many people hear the word ‘haiku’, their immediate response is, ‘That’s a Japanese poem written in seventeen syllables – 5-7-5’. While it’s true that traditional Japanese haiku is written in this form, haiku in English, because of the very nature of the English language, doesn’t conform to the 5-7-5 pattern.

The first thing to consider is the difference between the two languages. Japanese morae or phonetic units do not correspond to English syllables. Japanese morae comprise very short sounds, whereas English syllables tend to be much longer, often incorporating long vowels or diphthongs. Studies have shown that approximately twelve syllables in English is equivalent to the duration of seventeen Japanese morae.

That’s not to say that haiku can’t be written successfully in English using the 5-7-5 pattern, but an insistence on following the ‘rules’ every time can make haiku unwieldy. Even masters such as Basho didn’t always stick firmly to the prescribed pattern.

So how long should haiku be?

It has often been described as the length of one breath and it’s true to say that the trend in English language haiku is towards brevity. While a pattern of approximately 3-5-3 approximates the Japanese paradigm, haiku is about much more than syllable-counting

Ultimately it’s about expressing the haiku moment in the most effective way possible so that the poem has resonance and the power to move the reader.

Posted by Beverley George at 10:16 PM | Permalink

Just a reminder to all Haiku Oz visitors to sign up to the mailing list so that you receive all of the regular updates via email! We here at Haiku Oz pride ourselves on our service and look forward to keeping in regular contact with all of our readers.

Posted by Graham Nunn at 05:54 PM | Permalink

Haiku Articles on Yellow Moon web-site include the Four Pillars - articles by Janice M Bostok on Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki and an article by British Haiku Society librarian, Alison Williams, titled 'Haiku Lessons'. Visit
www.yellowmoon.info and access the Articles section.

Posted by Beverley George at 04:44 PM | Permalink

Those fairly new to writing haiku will find some useful articles by Edward Weiss on the Wisteria Press home page
http://www.wisteriapress.com/haiku_articles.html
The articles have a relaxed and friendly tone and contain good examples of haiku.

Posted by Beverley George at 04:23 PM | Permalink

Martina Taeker, Regional Representative for HaikuOz in South Australia, will present a workshop titled 'The Essence of Haiku' on 23 September 2006 from 1:30-4:30 pm at the SA Writers Centre in Adelaide.

On 2 November 2006, from 6:30-9:30 pm, Beverley George, President of HaikuOz, will present a workshop at the SA Writers Centre titled 'Tanka: where East meets West'. Tanka is a 1300 year-old genre which is becoming increasingly popular with poets writing in English. The workshop will be limited to 15 people, to allow everyone the opportunity to participate. If interested in attending, you may wish to read in advance the foundation article, Tanka: the myriad leaves of words' on www.eucalypt.info > Articles

Posted by Beverley George at 09:36 AM | Permalink

This year for the first time Queensland Poetry Festival and Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha invited poets and poetry lovers to an informal reading of haiku and other Japanese verse forms in the the Japanese Garden.

On Saturday 19 August, a lovely spring-like morning, 20 or so people gathered for the readings.

The morning opened with a dedication and reading of the work of Barry Dangerfield, a former curator and significant force behind the gardens as they are today, who passed away late last year.

A strong selection of Brisbane writers including Duncan Richardson, Katherine Samuelowicz, Jeff Harpeng, Ross Clark, Rowan Donovan, Graham Nunn and Ynes Sanz read from their own and others' work.

The highlight of the event for organisers was hearing from a number of people who responded to the invitation to compose a haiku during the morning, especially since some of them had never before written a haiku or read in public!

Those who were there enjoyed the opportunity to listen and read in such a peaceful and fitting setting and supported the idea of building from this somewhat tentative beginning in future years.

Ynes Sanz

Posted by Graham Nunn at 06:04 PM | Permalink

The paper wasp poets continued to meet during 2006 to greet old friends and new faces at Avid Reader bookshop in Brisbane's, West End, to workshop and generally encourage each other.

2006 has been a productive year so far for paper wasp and for individual members:

The paper wasp Second Australian Haiku Anthology edited by Janice M. Bostok, Katherine Samuelowicz and Vanessa Proctor with General Editor Jacquie Murray, July 2006, is now available for $22.00 in Australia and US$22 (cash only) elsewhere, all prices including postage. It contains 172 haiku poems from 48 poets which, are, as Janice Bostok says in her foreword, "the best being written by Australians at this time."

Also out is rusted hinge - the paper wasp jack stamm haiku anthology 2005 edited by Janice Bostok, Ross Clark, John Knight and Jacquie Murray, $10.00 in Australia or US$10(cash only) elsewhere, all prices including postage. This work represents the best of international writing and reflects the richness of paper wasp's subscription list of some 120 or so poets.

As always our pleasure in the winning poem should inspire us to enter again when the next jack stamm contest 2006 opens later in the year. This time the winner was Lorin Ford:

rusted hinge
the butterfly's wings
close, open ...

Group members have not been idle either : fans of paper wasp stalwart John Knight's work will welcome the publication of his beautiful little book big man catching a small wave available from Post Pressed Publishers 207/50 Macquarie St Teneriffe, Qld 4005 Australia Ph. 61 [0]7 3254 2056 Fax 61 [0]7 3254 2067 or from www.postpressed.com.au at $11 post paid within Australia.

Meanwhile paper wasp member Ynes Sanz has produced a chapbook of haibun and haiku talking poetry blues at $5 from [email protected].

Visit the updated paper wasp website at http://members.optusnet.com.au/paperwasp and please direct all submissions, enquiries and orders to paper wasp at [email protected] or by mail to paper wasp 14 Fig Tree Pocket Road Chapel Hill Queensland Australia 4069.

Posted by Graham Nunn at 06:01 PM | Permalink

2007 ROBERT FROST POETRY FESTIVAL and CONTESTS

The 13th Annual Robert Frost Poetry Festival will be held April 11 - 15th, 2007. The festival, set in the Heritage House Garden, Robert Frost Cottage, and at other select venues in Key West, again will feature poetry and haiku workshops, poetry and haiku readings, an art, poetry & film event, poetry on the water, and international Poetry and Haiku Contests. Featured poets are Dr. Michael Wyndham Thomas, Birmingham, England, Barry George, Charles Trumbull, Editor of Modern Haiku, and Key West novelist and poet Rosalind Brackenbury. For information, registration, and contest details, write to The RFPF, 410 Caroline Street, Key West, Florida 33040, USA, or visit robertfrostpoetryfestival.org or www.heritagehousemuseum.org.

2007 English-Language Haiku Contest

Sponsor: The 13th Robert Frost Poetry Festival (annual event), Key West, FL

Deadline: Postmark on or before March 20, 2007.

Prizes: 1st Place $75, 2nd Place $50, 3rd Place $25, and Honorable Mentions.

Judge: Charles Trumbull, Editor of Modern Haiku.

Submissions: Previously unpublished, must contain a seasonal or nature image, 3-line format of up to 17 or fewer syllables. Two copies, typed or neatly written, with your name, address, phone and/or email on one copy only. For details, visit robertfrostpoetryfestival.org/ or heritagehousemuseum.org/

Entry fee: $10 for up to 3 haiku per person. Make checks payable to "Robert Frost Poetry Festival."

Send entries to: Robert Frost Haiku Contest, Heritage House Museum, 410 Caroline Street, Key West, FL 33040 USA

Posted by Graham Nunn at 05:50 PM | Permalink