The World Haiku Festival
2002 Yuwa, Akita, Japan
Commemorating the 130th Anniversary of the Birth of Rogetsu
and in Honour of Shiki, Basho & R. H. Blyth
|
ANNOUNCEMENT
OF WINNERS
WORLD HAIKU COMPETITION
The R. H.
Blyth Award
Susumu Takiguchi, Chairman
(UK) |
 |
The Winner, 2 Runners-up
& 7 Honourable Mentions
The World Haiku
Club, in association with Yuwa Town, Akita, Japan, organised this world-wide
haiku competition as part of the commemoration of the 130th anniversary of the
birth of Rogetsu. R.
H. Blyth will be honoured at the World Haiku Festival 2002.
The R.
H. Blyth Award has been created and incorporated in the events to honour the man
who was the foremost in introducing haiku to the world and also to celebrate the
development of this genre on a global basis, which is partly due to the amazing
achievements of Blyth
in introducing haiku to the rest of the world.The Festival, which will take
place from 20 to 22 September 2002 at Yuwa Town, Akita Prefecture, Japan. The
WHC R. H. Blyth Award, starting from this year, aims at becoming one of the most
important haiku contests in the world. Because of this happy coincidence, it has
been decided to combine these two events for this year. Hence, R. H. Blyth
Award/WHF2002 World Haiku Competition.
No guidelines were
set for this competition except that the poems should somehow reflect authors’
understanding of the four people chosen as the Festival’s theme. Therefore,
all manner of style, tradition and form were allowed and the submitted poems
were judged purely by their literary merits, i.e. whether they worked on the
judges.
Severe
time constraint was put to the competition because the winning poem, runners-up
and
honourable mentions together with many other
haiku of merit should be published in the July issue of World Haiku Review and
in the proposed WHF2000/2002 World Haiku Anthology. In
the event, nearly two hundred poets participated, and after eliminating
disqualified poems and late entries, 541 poems were presented before the judges.
Each of the nine judges, independently and without conference, chose their best
ten. They further chose each of their best three and gave quite a substantial
and well-written comment on all of them. (This
is a good way in which the reader can have the best insight into each different
judge’s taste, style, criteria and ideas on haiku.)
The remaining seven were their honourable mentions.
These constitute the main selections by the judges, and they are shown in this
issue in their entirety. Then, the judges were further asked to select the R. H.
Blyth Award winner according to a mathematical formula. As
a result, we now have the clear winner. The winner of the First R. H. Blyth
Award/ World Haiku Festival 2002 is the haiku by Kirsty
Karkow of the USA:
returning geese--
dawn rises over the rim
of my coffee cup
Karkow is a
talented haiku poet without showing off her talent. Her modesty seems to work in
her favour. The R. H. Blyth Award is given to her solely on the strength of this
haiku, which secured the highest point from the judges, but a glance at her
other haiku poems elsewhere indicates that she does indeed deserve a high praise
as a haiku writer.
The award
celebration ceremony will be held at the WHF2002 Yuwa Town, Akita 20 - 22
September 2002. She will be awarded the prize of 300 British pound sterling and
a memento. If Karkow cannot receive the Award in person, she should appoint a
participant in the Festival as her official representative. Many congratulations
to Karkow, now, in this issue!
At the
ceremony, other prizes, which are not the R. H. Blyth Award, may be conferred on
some of the judges’ best ten poems. The two runners-up and seven honourable
mentions are shown below.
Congratulations and thanks
to all poets who submitted works to this important contest, to the winner and
those honoured in various best tens, and last but not least to the distinguished
judges who went through the rigorous process of selections patiently and
conscientiously.
202
returning geese--
dawn rises over the rim
of my coffee cup
Kirsty
Karkow
Maine, United States
|
Two
Runners-up (in order of ranking) |
328
twilight...
a boy brings down
his kite
K. Ramesh
Chennai, India
182
Cryptomerias
receding in mountain mist
I forget the shrine
Tim Hornyak
Tokyo Japan
|
Seven
Honorable Mentions (in order of ranking) |
34
gurgling stream
the stone drying in my hand
dies silently
John Bird
Australia
167
indian
summer
the intersecting circles
of hawks
Carolyn
Hall
California, United States
12
open
the door
to the lime-tree fragrance-
guest
is coming
Dimitar
Argakijev
Skopje, Macedonia
303
the planets align .
. .
at the bottom of a glass
lemon seeds
W.F.
Owen
California,
United States
66
through sleet
screams draw
unseen
cranes
Sonia
Cristina Coman
Constantza, Romania
108
empty
bird's nest
in an empty tree--
year's end
Meryl
Duprey
British Columbia, Canada
15
changing
kimonos
between seasons...
my ordinary life
Pamela A. Babusci
New York, United States
Next
Read Judge, Ion Codrescue's Selections and Comments
Read
more about the WHF2002 Akita
2002
Speakers
See
the WHC Website for Details & Application Form
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