Winners

Please click on the place number to read the haiku.

1st (Winner of the Jeanette Stace Memorial Award): Greg Piko, Australia

2nd: Tony Beyer, New Plymouth

3rd: Chen-ou Liu, Canada

4th: Keith Frentz, Tauranga

5th: John Barlow, UK.

Highly Commended: Catherine Mair, Katikati; Ernest J. Berry, Picton; Janine Sowerby, Christchurch, John Barlow, UK; Katherine Raine, Owaka; Pamela Smith, Australia; Sophia Frentz, Dunedin.

Commended: André Surridge, Hamilton; Barbara Strang, Christchurch; Chen-ou Liu, Canada; Duncan Richardson, Australia; Elaine Riddell, Hamilton; Elise Mei, Christchurch; Jeffrey Harpeng, Australia; Katherine Raine, Owaka; Kirsten Cliff, Papamoa; Quendryth Young, Australia; Sandra Simpson (2), Tauranga; Sophia Frentz, Dunedin.

Judge's Report (Judge: Joanna Preston) 

Six hundred haiku. Six hundred attempts to crystallise the moment of an epiphany, and offer it whole to a stranger. Put like that, is it any wonder that haiku is a difficult form to master?

I was able to discard a third of the poems very easily. They tended to be lists of unlinked images, or flat statements (often political), or jokes, or epigrams. Too many seemed to have an attached rimshot at the end - haiku and senryu may be funny, may even operate with a punchline. But that's not the only thing they do, and they don't stand back and expect to be applauded afterwards. If the reader's response is "oh yes, very clever. Next", you've failed. If it's a snort of laughter followed by "but that's so true!", there's a good chance you've got it right. The best haiku involve multiple senses, have layers of meaning and use ambiguity to keep the poem open to numerous interpretations. The line between ambiguity and befuddlement is a very thin one, and merely sounding gnomic isn't enough.

Of the rest, there were a surprising number that failed because they weren't edited well enough. Spelling is important, as is punctuation (if you use it). Be consistent - lots of poems (especially those padded out to seventeen syllables) used an article - ‘a', ‘the', ‘an' - in one line but omitted it in another. It's like wearing lipstick on only one lip - either option is fine, but not choosing is either lazy or bizarre. And still others used words that didn't quite mean what they evidently thought they did. In competition, those sorts of errors will see your poem cut very quickly.

Writing in 1870, Emily Dickinson famously said:

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me,
I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off,
I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?

Reading through the best of this years' entries, I got to feel the truth of her words, quite literally. Haiku is a subtle form of poetry, so its effects are quiet, but profound. And reading good haiku does produce a physical response - something in your body recognises deep truth, and for a moment you're stilled, suspended, inside the moment. There were a little over two dozen poems that did this, and that continue to make me catch my breath on each rereading. So to all the placed and highly/ commended poems - thank you. It has been a privilege to spend the last month immersing myself in your work.

First place:

her grandson's lips
just a little like hers
chinese whispers

Even on the superficial level, this is an interesting image. A child whispering into an old woman's ear (or vice versa), playing a game. The contrast between their physical appearance - old with young, male with female. Or is it more abstract? His lips are "just a little" like hers - we don't know how young he is. Could he be learning to speak? Practicing new words, and not quite making the right sounds, the right shapes with his lips? We talk about learning our ‘mother tongue', but grandmothers are often just as important, especially in modern families where mum might be at work much of the day. And then there's another possibility - genetics. Inheritance. He is her grandson, and so only carries one quarter of her genes. Enough to be ‘like', but ‘just a little'. And the game of chinese whispers is a perfect metaphor for the way that genetic information changes through generations.

This poem was in my top five from the first read-through. What gives it the edge in the end is how satisfying, how meaningful even on a superficial reading. From the ‘moment' of noting a resemblance, to a consideration of the whole complexity of familial inheritance, with each layer complementing the next. The perfect synthesis of emotion and intelligence. Subtle, and very very good.

Second place:

talking it through
beside the signer
the mayor again

Of all the earthquake-related haiku, this was the standout. But it earns its place regardless of the topicality. Did you notice the twist? Reread it. Not ‘beside the mayor' (the usual figure of importance), but beside the signer. Just as everything in Christchurch has been turned upside down by the earthquakes, the usual order of importance has been reversed, and the star of the show is the figure signing. And that last word is superb - again. Earthquakes again. Bob Parker and his orange jacket again. More words, more press conferences, more officials giving official comments to the media. Again, again again. And through it all, through them all, the unlikely celebrities, NZSL interpreters Jeremy Borland and Evelyn Pateman, real people bringing a usually forgotten part of the community into prominence.

And that first line, "talking it through". Through, in which sense? Via? About? During? Over? To the end? The officials, talking through the signers? The signers, talking through the media? The mayor doing deals on the sidelines? All of us, talking through the trauma and the chaos and the confusion? All of that, and more. A really good piece of writing, and one that will continue to work long after the aftershocks have ended.

Third place:

crowded
in my whisky glass
autumn stars

A lovely classical haiku, entirely bound into the image and the moment. Key here is the play of the images, and the shift of focus. Crowded - a human scale, combining a certain amount of confinement with an awareness of (occupied) space. Glass - small, intimate, vulnerable. And then autumn stars - opening out into the vast expanse of the night sky. You can feel the person looking into their glass, than raising their gaze upwards. Feel the whirling sensation of the alcohol matching the giddiness of the depths of space. The colour of the whisky and the golden hues of autumn, and the way stars seem brighter and more numerous then than at any other time of year. Are the stars also ice cubes in the whisky? The light reflecting from the glass as it is raised? Or from the liquid itself? It's pure moment, and a very accomplished ‘ahhh'.

Fourth place:

comparing shadows
my father's
fading

Parents cast shadows - literal and metaphorical - over their children. Part of growing up is moving out of that shadow, and casting your own.

There is wonderful multiplicity in this poem, and it's rooted in the words ‘shadows' and ‘fading', and the use of the apostrophe in the middle line. The superficial meaning is simple: we're both looking at our shadows, and for some reason my father's shadow is fading. Do we read "father's" as a possessive? (The shadow of my father is fading?) Or as a contraction? (My father is fading?) Both?

Fading in what sense? Literally, because of a change in the light? Metaphorically, because he is growing less substantial? (Again, literally or metaphorically?) Is this a sudden realisation of a parent's aging? (‘As we compare shadows, I realise my father is growing elderly'.) Or is the shadow a metaphor for his influence over ‘my' life?
Five words; and an entire movie's-worth of drama, pathos and conflict.

Fifth place:

walking barefoot
over the paths of snails
summer dawn

Another haiku in the classical mode. The contrast of the silvery snail-trails and the golden red of the rising sun, the cold wetness of snails and the heat and dryness of a summer day. Not to mention the link between the bare feet of the human and the single foot of the cephalopod. You can choose to read this as a literal description - it's dawn, it's summer, I'm walking barefoot, and there are snail trails across the path. Or you can take a more romantic view - that it is Dawn personified, walking across the garden.

It's a good example of focus shifting - looking down at bare feet, then further down and more focused to pick out the snail markings, and then up and out with an almost audible sigh to register summer dawn. And it's very tactile - bare feet, slimy snails, hard path (concrete? Stone? Maybe dirt, or grass?) and summer warmth. Emotionally satisfying without ever being sentimental. A palpably lovely haiku.


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