We invite you to submit haiku poetry on the theme of Summer. All approaches to haiku are accepted for submission.

Previously published haiku, and unpublished haiku, are both accepted for this competition.

The competition is open until 2015 (February 15th 2015 midnight all time zones)

All the details you need are at: http://area17.blogspot.com

Haiku Prizes:

1st prize £75
2nd prize £50
The With Words Summer Haiku Prize for Unpublished Work £25

If an unpublished haiku wins 1st Place or 2nd Place an additional £25 is added to the £75 or £50 prize. There will also be Highly Commended and Commended haiku.

Entry fees can be sent in your own currency via Paypal which also allows for bank card transaction if you don’t have a paypal account.

You can send up to 50 haiku (published and/or unpublished) for AUD$18; AUD$9 for 12 haiku; or AUD$1 for 2 haiku.

All the various details including the FREE TO ENTER author commentaries that can win an extra prize and appear in The With Words Haiku Book of Summer are also on the Area 17 blog: http://area17.blogspot.com

The judge is Alan Summers, a Japan Times award-winning writer and Pushcart Prize nominated poet. He is Director/Lead Tutor of With Words. Alan is a Foundation Member of the Australian Haiku Society, a former General Secretary (1998-2000) of the British Haiku Society. His work appears in the recent Norton anthology Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years; Haiku World: An International Almanac: and other leading anthologies.

Further information about his publishing credits are included for reference in the posts at Area 17.

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 11:19 PM | Permalink

Congratulations to the winners of the City of Perth Library Haiku competition!

1st Prize Jan Dobb, Mawson ACT

one lone cloud
a curl of duck –down
sails the lake

2nd Prize – Samar Ghose, Stoneville WA

morning fog
from dewdrop to dewdrop
the dawn light

3rd Prize – Vanessa Proctor, Pymble NSW

rain squalls
settling into the hush
of the library

Highly commended – Dawn Bruce, St Leonards NSW

reed bed
the egret’s feathers
blushed by sunset

Commended – Duncan Richardson, Corinda, QLD

walking frames
lined up
their shadows

Commended -Tash Adams Gooseberry Hill, WA

wattle blossom
her hair
in bunches

Thanks to everyone who entered this year’s Haiku Competition. A very special thank you to Maureen Sexton, from HaikuOz, for judging the haiku again this year.

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 11:19 PM | Permalink

Entries are invited for the second Blue Giraffe Press Haiku Competition. A maximum of 5 haiku can be submitted, each being the sender’s original work that has not already appeared in print or electronic media – pieces entered cannot be on offer elsewhere either. The submission window is October 2014 only. Three prizes will be conferred, each valued at AUD $100 – no entry fee is required.

Entries in the second Blue Giraffe Press Haiku Competition can be sent by Australia Post only, with SSAE enclosed, to the following address:

Peter Macrow
BGP Haiku Competition
6/16 Osborne Street
Sandy Bay TAS 7005

Conditions of Entry –

A valid entry must:

- include a true statement that the entry is the sender’s original, unpublished work, not on offer elsewhere;
- also include an SSAE;
- not exceed 5 haiku in number;
- be able to be published in Prospect poetry journal.

Posted by Rodney Williams at 06:02 PM | Permalink

Entries are welcomed for the Genjuan International Haibun Contest 2015. Entry is free. Prizes and certificates will be awarded to winners. Needing to arrive between 1 Oct. 2014 and 31 Jan. 2015, entries should be sent to: Ms Eiko Mori, 2-11-23-206 Jokoji, Amagasaki-shi, Hyogo-ken 660-0811, Japan.

Guidelines for the Genjuan International Haibun Contest 2015:

Background:
Genjuan is the name of the cottage near Lake Biwa where, in 1690, Basho lived for a time.
His residence in this ‘Vision-Inhabited Cottage’ was probably the happiest period of his life,
and it was there that he wrote his most famous short haibun.

Competition aims:
The purpose of the Genjuan International Haibun Contest is to encourage the writing of fine
haibun in English and to maintain the connection between the traditional Japanese
perception of haibun and what is evolving around the world.

Subject:
Free.

Style:
No restrictions, but special attention must be paid to honouring the spirit of haikai.

Length:
In total, between 10 and 40 lines (at one line = 80 spaces; a 3-line haiku counts as 3 lines).

Haiku:
At least one haiku should be included (with no formal restrictions).

Title:
Each piece should be given a title, however short.

Format:
Print on one sheet of A4-size paper (using the reverse side as well, if long). At the bottom,
write your name (and your pen name, if you have one), together with your address,
telephone number, and email address. Your privacy will be strictly protected, and the judges
will not see your names until the result has been decided.

Deadline/ address:
Between 1 October 2014 and 31 January 2015, please send your entries to:
Ms. Eiko Mori,
2-11-23-206 Jokoji,
Amagasaki-shi,
Hyogo-ken 660-0811,
Japan.

Entries received after this date might not be accepted.
Kindly avoid sending by express and using extra-large envelopes.
(It’s best to write your home address on your envelope, too.)

Entry Fee:
None.

Restrictions:
Entrants can send up to three entries.
They should be unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere.
As we cannot return your entries after screening, please retain your own copies.

Questions:
All queries should be sent to the address above or by email to [email protected]
Email Ms. Mori two weeks after sending your entries, if you wish to have an
acknowledgement of receipt.

Judges:
Toshinori (Nenten) Tsubouchi, Stephen Henry Gill, Hisashi Miyazaki

Special Request:
The authors of the decorated works will later be requested to send in their works by email.
In this, organisers expect your co-operation.

Results:
The results and the judges’ comments will be sent to all entrants in the northern spring.
Results will also be displayed on the Hailstone Icebox http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/.
(Full details about the competition can be seen there, along with last year’s winning pieces.)

Prizes:
Winner of the Grand Prix will receive a good replica of a Hokusai ukiyo-e print.
Smaller gifts will also be sent to the An (Cottage) Prize-winners (highly commended).
The writers of all the decorated works will receive a certificate of merit.

Stephen Gill

Posted by Rodney Williams at 09:30 PM | Permalink

The new issue of Shamrock (No 29) is now available online at
http://shamrockhaiku.webs.com/currentissue.htm
on the re-designed website.

It has a big selection of English-language haiku from all over the world, translated haiku (from Ukrainian) and two haibun. Many thanks to the contributors. We hope that our readers will enjoy this issue.

Editor

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 02:42 PM | Permalink

Submissions are now open for paper wasp’s next issue for all things Australian. This last special issue for 2014 (December/Summer) is especially for haiku with an Australian flavour/theme – for which overseas contributions are very welcome. The deadline for the Australian haiku edition is November 1.

This year paper wasp has been celebrating its 20th birthday. The longest running Australian haiku journal still in print, it was founded in 1994 by Jacqui Murray, John Knight and Ross Clark. The team was soon strengthened by Katherine Samuelowicz and the late Janice M Bostok. paper wasp has been marking the year with special issues devoted to various haiku genres. The object was to provide a friendly forum in which poets could try something new, spread their wings and/or showcase other skills.

Email: [email protected]
Postal: paper wasp, 14 Fig Tree Pocket Rd, Chapel Hill, Qld 4069, Australia.

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 02:30 PM | Permalink

Entries for the 2014 British Haiku Awards need to be received by 31 January, 2015. Non-British entries can be sent by email to David Steele at [email protected], along with payment by PayPal. Submissions must be in English, unpublished and not concurrently entered in any other competition. There is no limit on the number of submissions per competitor.

Entry procedures for the 2014 British Haiku Awards:

International poets can email haiku, tanka and haibun to the British Haiku Awards, with entries to be accompanied by the name, postal address and email address of the entrant, plus PayPal payment.

Haibun should be given a title and must include at least one haiku. Containing a minimum of 100 words of prose, haibun must not exceed 2,500 words in length.

No entries will be returned, so entrants should keep their own copies.

Entry fees: Up to 3 haiku = £5 (or US$ 8) and £1 (US$ 1) per haiku thereafter.
The fee for tanka works the same as for haiku, but haiku and tanka are separate categories (i.e. no mixing for one fee).
The fee for haibun is £5 (US$ 8) per entry.

To be emailed - along with international entries - to David Steele at [email protected], PayPal payments should be made in £ sterling (not $ etc.), while also including an extra 10% to cover the PayPal transfer fee.

Judges’ choices will be final and no correspondence can be entered into about the results.
It is possible for an entrant to win more than one prize.
For haiku, prizes of £125 will be awarded to each of the two best, with £50 to each of two runners-up. Tanka: first prize – £125; runner-up – £50.
Haibun: winner – £100.

Results will be published on the BHS website at http://www.britishhaikusociety.org.uk
All haiku and tanka selected for awards will be published in the May 2015 issue of the BHS journal, Blithe Spirit, along with the judges’ reports.
Selected haibun may also appear in that issue, space permitting.
(All entries must have remained unpublished elsewhere until after BHS competition results have been declared.)

Copyright reverts to authors after publication in Blithe Spirit, but entering any category signifies agreement that entrants’ work can be published digitally by the BHS or copied for archival purposes (for example, by the British Library or the Poetry Library, London).

The judges for the 2014 British Haiku Awards will be:
Tanka – Katherine Gallagher;
Haibun – John Parsons;
Haiku – Kim Richardson and Leo Lavery.

For further details about this competition, plus examples of previous winning Haiku and Haibun, please visit: www.britishhaikusociety.org.uk

Enquiries regarding the British Haiku Awards 2014 (including about PayPal payments) should be directed to the British Haiku Society.

Posted by Rodney Williams at 11:37 PM | Permalink

Hearty congratulations to Helen Davison for having achieved the highest distinction in her category – Best International Haiku in the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival - 2014 Haiku Invitational, with her haiku

bridge crossing . . .
the full moon sprinkled with
cherry blossoms

Judge’s comment:

Many haiku have been written about a variety of different objects floating on the moon’s reflection on the water. This one, however, has an interesting twist. When one thinks of cherry blossoms, the most obvious images that come to mind are in colour. By placing this haiku at night, we are forced to view the image as a black-and-white photograph. In so doing, what would otherwise have been an ordinary haiku about petals on the water becomes an entirely different and far more interesting haiku.

International
Sakura Awards and Honourable Mentions include:

temple blossoms
the distance between
your god and mine

David Terelinck

she loves me
she loves me not . . .
the blossoms fall

John Carroll

morning dew
following me back inside
the cat and cherry petals

Mark Miller

evening star
a bouquet of cherry blossom
on my front porch

Cynthia Rowe

walking meditation . . .
my mother stops
at the cherry blossoms

Samantha Sirimanne Hyde

raindrops
cherry blossoms falling
with them

Quendryth Young

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 03:46 PM | Permalink

Closing date: 31st October 2014

First Prize: NZ$200

Second and Third prizes: NZ$50 each

Judge: Owen Bullock

Send entries to:

The Kokako Tanka Competition
Patricia Prime
42 Flanshaw Road
Te Atatu South
Auckland 0610
New Zealand

Email: [email protected]

Please make cheques out to Kokako.

Overseas entrants may send cash at their own risk, or by using the paypal address: [email protected]

Conditions of entry:

1. Tanka must be previously unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere.
2. Entry fee is NZ$2 per tanka; overseas entries: US$2 per tanka; AU$2 per tanka. Any number of entries may be sent.
3. Send two copies of each tanka, or group of tanka, with your name, address and email on one copy only.
4. 1st, 2nd & 3rd tanka, Highly Commended and 3 Commended entries will be published in Kokako (April 2015), along with the judge’s report.
5. Winners will be notified by email or mail.
6. Any theme is acceptable.

Any queries (including about PayPal), email: [email protected]

Posted by Rodney Williams at 07:24 PM | Permalink

Entries to the 2014 Katikati Haiku Contest should be in hand by September 26. Cash prizes (sponsored by Kings Seeds) total $NZ175. Submit 2 copies of each poem with 1 copy only including your name, address/email address and phone number.

Haiku should not have been published (including on the web). Entry: $NZ5 for 3 haiku or $NZ2 for 1 haiku. Make cheques payable to Katikati Haiku Pathway Committee. Paypal available, email maggib@ netsmart.net.nz Post entries to Katikati Haiku Contest, PO Box 183, Katikati 3166, New Zealand. Judge is Sandra Simpson.

http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/haikunews

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 02:32 PM | Permalink

The following items were posted on the HaikuOz website during August and can be accessed at www.haikuoz.org

Cloudcatchers’ Ginko No. 34 report
2014 Janice M Bostok Contest will not proceed
Kimberley Corrugated Lines Haiku Contest results
Report of Bindii meeting 2 August 2014

Posted by Rodney Williams at 11:02 PM | Permalink

The 12th issue of A Hundred Gourds, a quarterly journal of haiku, haibun, haiga, tanka and renku poetry is now online for your reading pleasure.

www.ahundredgourds.com

In Memoriam

It was with great sadness in April this year that we read the police confirmation that Martin Lucas, haiku poet and editor and publisher of the British haiku journal, Presence, had drowned. Martin’s articulate insight into what makes good haiku is irreplaceable. It is fitting that Matthew Paul who, with Stuart Quine and Ian Storr, will be continuing Presence has written an insightful personal appreciation of Martin and his work for this issue of A Hundred Gourds
.
Submissions Deadline

The deadline for all submissions to AHG 4.1 (the December 2014 issue) is September 15th. AHG has an open submissions policy: any submissions received after the deadline will be filed for consideration for the March 2015 issue. Please check our submissions page for details and editors’ guidelines.

Please take the time to read the AHG submissions page and ensure that your submission complies.

Lorin Ford – Haiku Editor, Managing Editor,
for the Editorial Team, A Hundred Gourds

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 10:55 AM | Permalink