As contest coordinator for the 2023 Annual Hortensia Anderson Haiku Awards (aha), I was delighted to receive a diverse collection of 1094 entries from across the globe, ie: Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, India, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malta, Montenegro, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Switzerland, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the USA, and Venezuela.
A special thank you to friends on social media who distributed our competition Flyer via Facebook pages and posted our competition details on their personal Web pages. It has been a pleasure as well to work with an’ya and the contest judge peterB.–Marilyn Humbert, Australia
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As a judge, it was a distinct honor for me to read all the entries for this 2023 Annual Hortensia Haiku Awards. Submitting your work to any contest sets you up for disappointment or glee, all at the hands of some (usually) unknown judge(s) “opinion” of what is a “good haiku.”
A world-class award-winning haiku can be rejected numerous times due to the particular judge's tastes, whims, or “idea” of form, etc. In reading through these 1094 submissions from 36 countries, my first shortlist sort was about my ability to quickly understand/visualize the “content”, and immediately grasp the “aha” moment without having to stop and ponder, or analyze what the writer intended.
My second review was for raw “form” (per this contest's guidelines). There were many very good content haiku entered that simply were out of the aha contest guidelines that may have been chosen (per a different contest’s guidelines).
The final selection was the hard part and not a quick process. At this juncture, I reread and mulled over each one again for a few weeks and then culled them to the following six final winners. Congratulations to these winners, and thank you to all who entered–peterB Judge, USA
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FIRST PLACE
midnight storm
closer with each boom
my old dog
Sasha A. Palmer
USA
Congratulations to this first-place winner. Storms always seem worse at night and although we are unable actually to see a storm, we can however “watch the “lightning” and in this case, “hear the thunder”. Just like humans, some animals are afraid, and try to take cover. In Sasha’s haiku this act of cuddling gives comfort and eases both human and canine. So many of the entries were “telling” rather than “showing”. In Sasha’s haiku, the pivot is strong and it’s a “show” rather than “tell” moment since the word “thunder” isn’t even mentioned, only the sound… “boom”.
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SECOND PLACE
winter silence–
under the tea towel
dough is rising
Daniela Misso
Italy
Thank you to this author for sharing her haiku with us. This ritual has been experienced for 9,000 years. Long before the sun comes up and the day’s commotion begins, the baker in the family is already preparing. A floured kitchen work table, and a covered bowl leading to a winter-time holiday treat or bread. I think we’ve all enjoyed whatever it magically led to. So simple. Rising snow levels create a “winter silence” which juxtaposes with the silence of the “rising dough”.
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THIRD PLACE
drought season
geese gather around
the last puddle
Wendy Toth-Notarnicola
USA
For third place, I’ve chosen this haiku that perhaps I have a little different take on having raised geese myself. I remember that without a pond or lake nearby, during a drought we used watering troughs. However, if you are a goose, nothing equals that last muddy brown puddle, nasty with feathers, too small and too shallow, yet geese will gather around, making it a noisy social event and special meeting place. ______
HONORABLE MENTIONS (in no order)
non-stop rain—
in the swollen river
debris of huts
Milan Rajkumar
India
If you live near an estuary in a monsoon climate like Southeast Asia, Australia, Africa, South/Central America, India, or the US Pacific Northwest, you know about swollen rivers and the debris coming down river… you have seen logs, boats, carcasses, trees, broken docks, and sadly the parts of someone's home, roofs, and pieces of huts, shelters, and such. All the “s” sounds enhance this haiku.
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thunderclap-
the paddy fields erupt
with white cranes
Suraja Roychowdhury
USA
I’m sure there must be a “thunder-meter” of some sort to show how loud a thunderclap can be. I heard this haiku and then saw the fields in a different way when all at once hundreds of cranes erupted into the air… when I read this haiku, it seemed like a video. Technically speaking, the haiku is rhythmically strong which is refreshing given some of the oddly structured lines in contemporary haiku today.
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stormy night
i shelter inside the covers
of a book
Jay Friedenberg
USA
A warm cozy setting by the fire, snuggling with your favorite blanket and wearing wool socks is an image that hit me in this haiku. To enjoy the rain with not a care in the world as you got “lost” in a book. Or inside “the covers” of a book in this case, as if hiding out from the storm… now primarily only a memorable event of the past in our laptop, TV, and video era of today.
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