World Haiku Club Award
This is a new award of the World Haiku Club created in celebration of World Haiku Festival in India, to which the first award session was dedicated.
It was conducted during the three-day event at the Art of Living Ashram, Bangalore, India for the Festival’s participants to submit up to three haiku on three themes: (a) spring moon as kigo (b) ‘ananda’ (or bliss, joy) but these words must not appear in the poem and (c) totally free haiku.
The World Haiku Award is not a regular competition. It will be undertaken from time to time for suitable occasions such as future WHF meetings elsewhere in the world or other special events.
The main points are that the best ten haiku poems were selected from the haiku poems written during the three days of the Festival by participants. The deadline was lunch time on the third day. On anonymous judging by Norman Darlington, Stanford M. Forrester and Susumu Takiguchi, there was a single award-winning haiku for which 100 GBP Award was conferred at the announcement and award-receiving ceremony in the evening of the third day of the Festival. The author of the haiku is Kameshwara Rao. There were two runners-up whose authors are Rohini Gupta and Narayanan Raghunathan. Seven Honourable Mentions were also chosen. Token prizes for these best ten works were presented. In addition, ten other poems were selected for Haiku of Merit, making this year’s entire selection of twenty good haiku poems.
THE AWARD WINNING HAIKU
temple steps…
master’s shoes on the same spot
every day
by Kameshwara Rao
TWO RUNNERS-UP (In no particular order)
spring moon –
too much pain
to write
by Rohini Gupta
spring moon –
a jasmine breeze echoes
raag basant
by Narayanan Raghunathan
SEVEN HONORABLE MENTIONS
(In no particular order)
spring moon –
the sole witness
of the stolen kiss
by Quamrul Hassan
at the doorstep
the mind
along with the chappal
by Mu-Murugesh
the sheer love
of writing the blossom verse –
autumn renku
by Sprite
slow moving traffic
on my radio
vilambit-teen-taal
by Usha Kiran
Note: vilambit-teen-taal is a slow beat in Hindustani classical music)
the first rain –
someone else also
holding out her hand
by Rohini Gupta
sunrise
a heron meditates
monks pass by
by Vidur Jyoti
Fountain -
obstructing water
stone becomes song
by Raju Samal
TEN ADDITIONAL HAIKU OF MERIT
(In no particular order)
silver glitter –
moon breaks
behind the boat
ginko walk…
I stop to pat
the small elephant
by K. Ramesh
moonlit curtain…
I step out of the room
for a ginko walk
by K. Ramesh
vedic chant…
a heron still on
the rock in the misty lake
by K. Ramesh
shattered shells
in a treetop nest
spring moon
by Kalpana R. J
still winter night
the wind chimes tinkle
as I close the door
by Harish Suryanarayana
constipated baby ~
after an hour in the toilet
a smile
by Harish Suryanarayana
large Gulmohar tree
I stop to see an iora
it flies away
by Harish Suryanarayana
No words
Only the heart’s tune
In my chest
in the still night
the footsteps of my master
rising moon
by sprite
Note: Some haiku poems are without the authors’ names. They will be added as soon as the authors are identified.
