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A Little Haiku Contest by the Croatian Haiku Magazine IRIS

“Oil Haiku and Senryu Contest in English”

THEME: Crude Oil, 2023

Judged by David McMurray

David McMurray’s Judging Comments for the “Oil Haiku and Senryu Contest in English”

Over 100 participants from 22 countries participated in the “Oil Haiku and Senryu Contest in English” for the Haiku Association Three Rivers and the Little Iris Haiku Contest. Contacting me from Ivanić-Grad, Djurdja Vukelic Rozic suggested the intriguing theme of “crude oil.” I was generously allowed to select three winning haiku, three winning senryu, and have a free hand in making ten honorary mentions from a numbered list of submitted haiku and senryu – neither identified by names nor addresses.

Many haiku associations, including the Haiku Foundation kindly encouraged their members to enter this contest and enjoy the “oil” prompt, noting it would be fun, interesting and lead haikuists to write about a topic they may not have tackled before. Julie Bloss Kelsey mentioned, the “A Little Iris Haiku Contest held recently with the theme of ‘crude oil.’ was not a topic about which I ever envisioned writing haiku!”

Crude oil affects our everyday lives–many of us use the energy source to keep warm and to generate electricity to power the lighting we use to read haiku books long into the night. Even master poet Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) relied on oil to write hokku, here’s one about his reading lamp (Japanese Haiku, Peter Pauper Press, 1956).

No oil to read by…
I am off to bed but ah!…
My moonlit pillow

In modern times, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded in 2011 to Tomas Transtromer, a member of the Swedish Haiku Society who wrote this haiku in his book, “The Sorrow Gondola.”

The orchid flowers.
Oil-tankers are gliding past.
The moon is full.

Most recently, the Asahi Shimbun in Tokyo also ran a regular column on December 2, 2022 of the Asahi Haikuist Network containing many haiku composed about oil, including this open-ended one by Kiyoshi Fukuzawa (https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14780408)

Camels marching…
alongside the pipeline
no one knows where to!

Selected Winners of the “Oil Haiku and Senryu Contest in English”

Haiku Grand Prix

pumpjack moon
the flow
of midnight

Edward Cody Huddleston, USA

Haiku Excellence

oil field–
a steel dinosaur pulls
itself from the earth

Julie Bloss Kelsey, Germantown, Maryland, USA

Haiku Choice

under the …

THE RESULTS

of the 9th INTERNATIONAL HAIKU/SENRYU CONTEST ON THE THEME OF GOURDS, 2022
organized by the Haiku Association „Three Rivers“and the Pumpkin Festival
Ivanić-Grad, Croatia

The International Haiku Contest in English, the theme of the gourds, counted up to 512 haiku/senryu by 105 author from 25 countries: Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brasil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland, UK, USA.

The contest was judged by an’ya

FIRST PLACE OVERALL

Ernesto P. Santiago, Philippines

pumpkin faces                               lica buča
the child's emotions           dječji osjećaji
started to shout                            počinju vrištati

SECOND PLACE OVERALL

Susan Burch, USA

getting the scoop                        ekskluzivna vijest
at the family reunion                 na obiteljskom druženju
juicy melon balls                         sočne kugle lubenice

THIRD PLACE OVERALL

Taylor Jo Kelly, United Kingdom

balafon                                  balafon
I watch the smile                 promatram kako osmijeh
flood her face                      preplavljuje njeno lice

FIRST HONORABLE MENTION

Cristina-Valeria Apetrei, Romania
waning moon                                             mjesec u opadanju
our cantaloupe disappears                     naša dinja nestaje
slice by slice                                               krišku po krišku

SECOND HONORABLE MENTION

Gordana Vlašić, Croatia
outstretched arms ̶                                       raširene ruke ̶
the scarecrow awaits                                   strašilo dočekuje
the pumpkin tendrils                                    vitice buče

THIRD HONORABLE MENTION

Jessica Renee Dawson, Canada

ornamental gourds                                 ukrasne tikvice
the centerpiece that was grown            središnji ukras rastao je
in mother's garden                        u majčinom vrtu

Congratulations to all awarded authors and many thanks to an’ya for judging the contest!…

Judging Report – A Little Iris Haiku Contest, Croatia 2021

By Debbie Strange

Theme: Book and Reading

My thanks to Djurdja Rozic for inviting me to adjudicate this contest, and to the entrants who entrusted me with their work. Congratulations to the winners! It was an honour to read the entries for this challenge, and even if your haiku was not chosen, it does not mean it was without merit. Judging choices are subjective, so please don’t be discouraged from submitting your poems elsewhere. You just might be the next winner!

I keep the following quote in mind when I submit my own work for consideration:

“What has praise and fame to do with poetry?” —Virginia Woolf

I think we writers have an ingrained love of reading that has likely been present since our childhoods. Who cannot remember the pleasure of learning to read their first book, the delight in practicing their first letters, or the joy in penning their first poem? Literacy gives us access to all the knowledge this world has to offer, and it is a privilege not to be squandered. We all understand that words have the power to hurt or to heal, and they must be wielded with care.

Themed contests present unique opportunities for writers to venture beyond straightforward interpretations of the subject matter. Thinking outside the box is vital in order to lift one’s haiku out of the ordinary realm, into the extraordinary. The competition is fierce when all of the contestants are on the same page, so to speak!

First Place: Taylor Jo Kelly, United Kingdom

dark forest
a young girl lost
in chapter two

I was drawn to this haiku from the first reading. A cinematic natural scene is set in the first line, or so we might think. The second line seems to reinforce the idea of a young girl’s misadventure. In the final line, we are treated to a charming surprise, and a feeling of joy. How wondrous that feeling of being “lost” in a book! I commend the multiple uses of ambiguity in this poem. Is the girl reading her book in an actual forest, or is it simply the chapter’s backdrop? Pivot lines in haiku are intriguing and rather rare, and the adept use of the zoom-in technique lifted this finely crafted poem into “something other” for me.

Second Place: Alan Peat, United Kingdom

drifting …