Friday, May 23, 2003
tinywords contest report - general commentary from some of the judges
The judges had a wide range of opinions regarding haiku in general and the contest entries and finalists in particular. Some felt having a kigo (season-word) is unimportant, others felt it to be critical to the success of a haiku. Some had strict notions of what constitutes a true haiku, others took a more liberal approach.
Here's a sampling of their comments.
"In general, I found the level of submissions to be unexpectedly high. That is, there were two dozen haiku that it would not be scandalous to select as winners, IMHO."
common problems
"I should mention that I’m a modernist who doesn’t care for syllable counting or about the presence or absence of season words. Also, if a poem grabs me, I don’t care if it’s technically haiku or senryu.
"Here are (to my taste) the most common problems among the submissions, in no particular order:
Wordiness--often, but not always, the result of syllable counting.
Sentences--rather than juxtaposing two images the writer gives us an unpunctuated sentence
Poem covers action over time--rather than a haiku moment
Titles--I believe haiku should be untitled"
on selecting haiku
"My method was to print out all 346 haiku. On first pass, late last night, I eliminated all clear losers, resulting in a shorter list of 76.
"As an aside: I automatically eliminated any entry that contained a grammatical error or a typo, viewing these as a waste of my time and that of the submitter. I also eliminated any titled haiku on the grounds that a fourth line is a cheat. The most common failing of the eliminated haiku was the lack two clearly defined, objective images juxtaposed in an interesting and resonant way. For me, this is the essential trait of the haiku and what distinguishes it from other poetry. Some examples in this category had only one image, while some others had too many images and tried to tell a
story ("miniseries haiku").
"I find that I read haiku differently in the morning and the evening, so I waited till this morning to continue my judging. On second pass I read each of the 76 haiku carefully and eliminated all but 23. From this set I then took a positive approach and selected my five favorites."
on the winners
"I notice that the top five turn out to be rather extensively credentialed haiku poets. ...perhaps this demonstrates a bit of why when well-known poets try their hand at haiku they almost always fail miserably....it's not easy to just whip out a good haiku...apparently it takes a while to get that haiku attitude..."
more on the winners
"This spring night when I think silently about things that matter I'll digest my dinner of sunfish, take the phone off the hook so as to not be disturbed by telemarketers, and wonder how enormous the weeds will grow in my little peace garden."
The judges had a wide range of opinions regarding haiku in general and the contest entries and finalists in particular. Some felt having a kigo (season-word) is unimportant, others felt it to be critical to the success of a haiku. Some had strict notions of what constitutes a true haiku, others took a more liberal approach.
Here's a sampling of their comments.
"In general, I found the level of submissions to be unexpectedly high. That is, there were two dozen haiku that it would not be scandalous to select as winners, IMHO."
common problems
"I should mention that I’m a modernist who doesn’t care for syllable counting or about the presence or absence of season words. Also, if a poem grabs me, I don’t care if it’s technically haiku or senryu.
"Here are (to my taste) the most common problems among the submissions, in no particular order:
Wordiness--often, but not always, the result of syllable counting.
Sentences--rather than juxtaposing two images the writer gives us an unpunctuated sentence
Poem covers action over time--rather than a haiku moment
Titles--I believe haiku should be untitled"
on selecting haiku
"My method was to print out all 346 haiku. On first pass, late last night, I eliminated all clear losers, resulting in a shorter list of 76.
"As an aside: I automatically eliminated any entry that contained a grammatical error or a typo, viewing these as a waste of my time and that of the submitter. I also eliminated any titled haiku on the grounds that a fourth line is a cheat. The most common failing of the eliminated haiku was the lack two clearly defined, objective images juxtaposed in an interesting and resonant way. For me, this is the essential trait of the haiku and what distinguishes it from other poetry. Some examples in this category had only one image, while some others had too many images and tried to tell a
story ("miniseries haiku").
"I find that I read haiku differently in the morning and the evening, so I waited till this morning to continue my judging. On second pass I read each of the 76 haiku carefully and eliminated all but 23. From this set I then took a positive approach and selected my five favorites."
on the winners
"I notice that the top five turn out to be rather extensively credentialed haiku poets. ...perhaps this demonstrates a bit of why when well-known poets try their hand at haiku they almost always fail miserably....it's not easy to just whip out a good haiku...apparently it takes a while to get that haiku attitude..."
more on the winners
"This spring night when I think silently about things that matter I'll digest my dinner of sunfish, take the phone off the hook so as to not be disturbed by telemarketers, and wonder how enormous the weeds will grow in my little peace garden."
