The 21 Best Haiku of 2021

Winner and Runners-up of the Society of Classical Poets 2021 Haiku Competition

Judged by Margaret Coats (see her remarks below)

See all entrants here.

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WINNER

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Fog enshrouds the night
Woven in the heavy mist
A thread of fireflies

—Joe Tessitore

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RUNNERS-UP in seasonal order

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Spring in the hedgerows
Magpies busy canceling
Fresh twitter accounts

—Sean Hickey

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How short is freedom
gained by the cherry blossom
released from the branch

—Germain Droogenbroodt

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wearily she waves
the white flag of surrender
cobwebbed butterfly

—Tracy Davidson

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Wisteria bloom
Along a sidewalk café
Coffee in the air

—Ravi Kivan

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Boughs froth with new blooms
when the monsoon rain sweeps through
trees toss their bouquets

—Rachel Nel

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Bear cubs watching men
Walking through a sylvan glen
The forest shudders

—Roy E. Peterson

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Hundreds of faces
Turning to sun and to seed
Imperceptibly

—Lisa White

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The young boy splashes
in the backyard swimming pool
facing subs and sharks

—Bruce Dale Wise

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watermelon patch
I let the weathered scarecrow
try on my straw hat

—Darrell Lindsey

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Issa, tonight you
hold the honored place at my
table, hungry fly

—Mark Philip Stone

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Looming laden clouds
Blanket Bombay’s bustling streets
And storms paint the sky

—Stuti Sinha

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A minute’s silence
for the atomic bomb day
The wind also dies

原爆忌風も静かに黙祷す

—Toshiji Kawagoe

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Falling August stars
The sky is full of beauty
So many wishes

—Vita

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end of the summer—
the calm surface of a lake
absorbs the twilight

—Marek Kozubek

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Curious concert—
crickets croon to a cornfield
of indifferent ears

—Martin Elster

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As winter draws near
Fabulous floral worlds bloom
The solace of books

—Mia P Solomonides

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one lone(ly) mallard
ignored by his own echo
quacks again, hoping

—James Ripley

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black skyscrapers scratch
at something beyond the gray
as white flakes drift down

—Spencer Green

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taste of morning tea
the delicate ray of sun
through an icicle

—Daniela Misso

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Dark branches stripped bare
cold and sad, quite unaware
stirrings down below

—Linette Eloff

 

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Comments from Judge Margaret Coats

Congratulations to the winner and runners-up for their fine haiku! There were very many good haiku among the poems submitted by 339 contestants this year (up from 246 last year). Thank you all for your skillful contributions to this display of poems.

As the competition was proceeding, there was some discussion in Comments about the requirements, especially the required seasonal reference. The excellent haiku above help show what it means to say that the seasonal reference ultimately depends on the poet’s artistry, rather than on choosing a word from a list.

Seasonal words are called “kigo” in Japanese, and there are many lists of them. If our winner, Joe Tessitore, had consulted one, he would have found “fireflies” in the summer section, and “fog” in autumn. Does this mean he cannot write a haiku describing fireflies in fog? Not at all. The poet must be true to his observations and his imagination. Even in Japan (despite kigo lists) heavy mist may arise over a lake during a summer night.

Joe says, “Fog enshrouds the night,” suggesting the dead of night, since a shroud covers a dead body. When he goes on to say, “Woven in the heavy mist,” the word “woven” emphasizes the dense, fabric-like texture of the fog. “A thread of fireflies” not only provides light in the dark natural scene, but completes the fabric metaphor with gold thread embellishing dark cloth. Joe’s haiku presents a summer night scene from nature—and suggests things beyond the scene (a beautiful textile, thoughts of light and beauty despite darkness or death).

Lisa White tells what season it is with a riddle rather than a word. What does she describe in her haiku’s first two lines? A field of sunflowers! Her final line makes excellent use of five syllables in the word “imperceptibly” to carefully specify the slow speed of the “turning to sun and to seed” mentioned in line 2.

Spencer Green also uses description rather than a seasonal word in his ingenious winter cityscape. Tracy Davidson saves the spring word “butterfly” to be the surprise answer at the very end of a puzzle personifying the creature in distress. Roy E. Peterson sets the season in “Bear Cubs” as the time when cubs who know the forest first encounter men. When is that? It takes a little thinking, even if the reader knows bear cubs are born during winter hibernation.

Sean Hickey names spring in his haiku’s first line, but he could have identified the season merely with his pun on “twitter,” referring to the cries of baby birds in spring. When he speaks of “magpies canceling fresh twitter accounts,” he describes notorious magpie aggression destroying the chicks or eggs of other bird species—but of course he mocks human cancel culture as well.

These examples of seasonal reference show that it can be an opportunity for the poet to demonstrate his or her skill. Simply naming a season, or using a recognized seasonal word, is fine. But be aware of how much a season includes. Human life takes place in the seasons of nature, and seasonal human activities or observances can be good ways of indicating a season.

Notice the poem by Toshiji Kawagoe about the minute’s silence recalling the atomic bomb blasts in Japan near the end of World War II. This takes place every year in August, and it is quite stirring to participate when traffic and talk stop on busy streets and in stores. The first two lines of the poem may look like a senryu rather than a haiku, but “the wind also dies.” The nature reference effectively deepens the thought.

There may seem to be no nature at all in Bruce Dale Wise’s poem on the boy in a backyard pool. But swimming has long been recognized as a human activity associated with summer, and the poet uses it well to open up the boy’s imaginative prospect of what he might possibly see in ocean waters.

One more haiku to mention here is Mark Philip Stone’s salute to the Japanese poet Issa. Issa comes right after Basho and Buson among the great masters of the form. He was a poor man who lived in a miserable hut. His poems address a cricket and a grasshopper as if they were human friends, and compare the poet himself to the neglected baby bird in a nest who never gets enough food. To call him a hungry fly is his very own style. Thanks for this nod to the haiku tradition!

If and when the Society of Classical Poets sponsors another haiku competition, poets will probably be asked to submit only haiku written since the last contest closed. This was not required in the 2021 competition.

Here are some suggestions for becoming a little more familiar with the Japanese haiku masters, and with some good English haiku in the 5-7-5 syllable form.

English translations by Peter Beilenson in his Peter Pauper Press books are great. Japanese Haiku was first published in 1955; it contains 220 poems in a beautiful little book with attractive artwork, and it is available online. It was followed by three more books in the same format: The Four Seasons, Cherry Blossoms, and Haiku Harvest.

One short and worthwhile kigo list is “The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words.” Remember, though, it lists words for Japan. The best way to use it is to study the categories: the heavens, the earth, human activities, human observances, animals and plants for each season. Imagine how these categories apply to your location—and you will be able to create seasonal references that suit your poetry. There are many other lists created by haiku schools in different places. None is comprehensive or universal; additions are made whenever they are considered useful. The number of words can run to many thousands, and a reader may miss your seasonal reference if you choose an obscure one. All the more reason to be clear and clever about the season when writing traditional haiku, even if you use a kigo list to find inspiring suggestions or to check your initial thoughts.

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