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The 23 Best Haiku of 2023
Winner and Runners-up of the Society of Classical Poets 2023 Haiku Competition
Judged by J. Thomas Rimer and Margaret Coats (see their remarks below)
See all entrants here.
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COMPETITION WINNER
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Swallow, an arrow
bursts across the burnished blue
I cannot catch time
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—Alena Casey
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RUNNERS-UP IN SEASONAL ORDER
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Splinters of sunshine
Splinters of sunshine
piercing the morning silence . . .
icicles crumble
—Keith A. Simmonds
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oh I cannot touch
oh I cannot touch
that branch of cherry blossoms
that is touching me
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—Lucia Haase
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on Easter Sunday
on Easter Sunday
a great tit out and about
in his smart black cap
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—Andrew Shimield
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mid-monsoon showers
mid-monsoon showers
the sound of daily footsteps
turns into splashes
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—Hla Yin Mon
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as I walk barefoot
as I walk barefoot
my footsteps are filling up
with rain, then sunshine
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—Stefanie Bucifal
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twilight gardening
twilight gardening
a grey and white mosquito
flits ever closer
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—Barbara Strang.
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Waked to August rain
Waked to August rain
Soothing in its constancy
With it my heart beats
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—Gigi Ryan
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In the oar’s eddy
In the oar’s eddy
swirling on a maple leaf
one ant near the edge
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—Richard Matta
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Peaches picked, not ripe
Peaches picked, not ripe
Sit on the sill and sweeten
Aging, we summer
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—Maura H. Harrison
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The old man sits there
The old man sits there
Watching the magnolias—
Lost in yesterday
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—Ruddy Gordon
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Patient desert winds
Patient desert winds
grain-by-grain shift a sand dune.
Thus mountains are moved.
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—Paul A. Freeman
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cracking desert crust
cracking desert crust
skies reclaiming silent clouds
summer humbling earth
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—Portly Bard
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Solstice
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Summer in decline
In my bones I can feel it
Earth’s tilt and turning
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—Sharon Mueller
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Out of parched corn-rows
fly fat, black ears—the wind reaps
a harvest of crows
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—Carey Jobe
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a cold lonesome night
through the half-open window
climbs the harvest moon
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—Neena Singh
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swans, having cast off
their indigo hakama
share grey skymantle
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hakama: traditional Japanese garment flowing from waist to ankle
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—Sheila Barksdale
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abandoned farmhouse
collapsing into itself
if not for the vines
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—Jacquie Pearce
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moon in a puddle
the wet and dark reverse side
of a fallen leaf
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—Alex Malley
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leafless cherry trees—
the same world as yesterday
but with no more love
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—Marcellin Dallaire-Beaumont
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snowy train station
my window stopping slowly
to frame the silence
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—Eduard Tara
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Huddled in holly
cold sparrows without a neck.
Winter seclusion.
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—Ian Richardson
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the crowded ballroom
and snowflakes swirl quietly
outside the window
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—Urszula Marciniak
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The winning haiku by Alena Casey presents a swallow as an image of dazzling energy, in tension with the speaker’s unfulfilled desire to “catch time.” The dynamism of image and desire creates a vibrant poem, comparable to one by Japanese master Matsuo Bashō, given below in Roman letters, with translation by David Barnhill.
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hototogisu
kieyuku kata ya
shima hitotsu
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cuckoo
off where it disappears
a single island
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In both English and Japanese poems, one sees a bird on its way to an indistinct vanishing point. Thrilling motion in the natural order is followed by contemplation. Casey longs for the ability to catch time, which in one sense means the power to reproduce or memorialize the moment as experienced. More broadly, she expresses a yearning to control time and make the pleasant present permanent. This is not humanly possible, but the poem enables her to foreground the thought vividly. Bashō considers space rather than time, the bird becoming a mere spot on the horizon. An island may or may not be visible. Either way, it represents the unretainable flight of the cuckoo seen by the Japanese poet. “Hototogisu” is one of those 5-syllable words representing a formidable challenge to every poet writing in Japanese. How can one take the iconic bird name and make a poem that says anything original with only 12 additional syllables? It is a classic exercise in traditional style. Alena Casey seems to respond in English with a new avian name of 5 syllables, “Swallow, an arrow”—and a poem of original vigor.
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Barbara Strang offers an amusing contrast to Casey and Bashō. She does not wish nature in the shape of a mosquito to linger nearby, and thus she records its flitting approaches as an ominous experience.
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Andrew Shimield spots a bird acting in accord with human ways. His great tit, strutting about on Easter Sunday wearing the “smart black cap” characteristic of his species, fits right in with ladies and their bonnets on Easter parade.
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Carey Jobe’s parched corn-rows don’t at first suggest birds. In a gradual revelation, the wind kicks up and reaps what looks like flying black ears of corn, but is in fact “a harvest of crows” who have consumed the remains of the crop.
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In another description of birds flying away, Sheila Barksdale portrays swans as rising from water by casting off “indigo hakama.” Hakama in different shades of blue are formal dress for persons engaging in different schools of martial arts; this is an elaborate way of suggesting the beauty and artistry of the birds as they swim. Flying together, their lower bodies now uncovered, they share the grey mantle of the sky.
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Haiku can function like riddles or proverbs—after the poet sets up a question with understated artistry. Notice how Keith A. Simmonds explains that soundless sunshine pierces silence, and how Paul A. Freeman observes winds moving mountains. Eduard Tara asks the reader how and why a window stops slowly, but envisions the answer with his opening line setting the scene in a train station.
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Neena Singh sets her scene in a cold lonesome night. The lack of warm companionship suggests a welcome intruder when the harvest moon “climbs” through her window. The word choice is much more exciting than “shines.”
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To Urszula Marciniak, a window is the border between worlds. She crams her crowded noisy one into the first line of 5 syllables, and most unusually lets the simple, unnecessary “and” act as “cutting word” to emphasize the ballroom’s separation from nature. The two worlds become comparable only because of her word “swirl.”
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Lucia Haase depicts connection and conflict between poet and nature. The word “that” is repeated, and the conspicuous second “that,” considered as the subject of a new sentence, introduces double meaning. She is touched by the beauty of the cherry blossoms, but sadly as well by her situation of being unable to touch them physically. The two words “touch” and “touching” also interact with subtle nuance.
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Gigi Ryan, on the other hand, writes a poem of intimate harmony between self and nature. The opening word “Waked” reveals the speaker coming to consciousness for the day, immediately soothed by the constancy of August rain. Going on to speak of her heartbeat intensifies the impression of complete comfort due to real similarity.
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In her haiku entitled “Solstice,” Sharon Mueller feels attuned to imperceptible seasonal changes. The summer solstice happens in June, long before summer weather is over. Subsequent decline in hours of daylight is the result of change in “Earth’s tilt and turning,” normally unnoticed by Earth’s inhabitants, but felt in the bones of this speaker. She thus claims unique closeness to the earth’s motions, perhaps due to years of experience with it.
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Ruddy Gordon, though, sees an old man lost in the past. This too comes from intent observation of nature while he is seated “watching the magnolias.” Gordon’s poem takes a third-person view of nature and the response of an observed human being. The third person omniscience of Portly Bard is much less common. His view from above sees not only the dried desert, but also skies withdrawing clouds that are silent in their refusal to speak rain. Summer seems a scorching scourge intent on humbling earth. “K” and “s” and “m” sounds contribute to the fierce effect. Maura H. Harrison changes “p” sounds to “s” sounds to indicate change as she contemplates peaches ripening, then applies the observation to human aging. She transforms “summer” into a state-of-being verb.
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Perspective in Richard Matta’s haiku continually diminishes from an oar’s eddy in water to a maple leaf moving within it to one ant on an edge of the leaf—swirling in peril of his life, as emphasized by his off-center position. Alex Malley also uses shrinking perspective, established in his first line as the moon seen in a puddle, which on closer observation turns out to be a leaf, and indeed the “wet and dark reverse side” of that leaf in contrast to puddle water. These words call to mind the mysterious dark side of the moon. Jacquie Pearce, too, takes a closer look at the focal point of her poem, an abandoned farmhouse, to see that its identity as such seems to be collapsing, preserved only by the vines growing upward and outward in and around the decaying remains of the house.
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Marcellin Dallaire-Beaumont sees spring’s lovely cherry trees leafless. This means a great portion of the year is gone, for once blossoms fall, leaves flourish for a very long time. The poet invites consideration about when and how and why love seems to vanish from the world. Ian Richardson delves into seclusion, with the image of sparrows retracting their heads to preserve body heat, such that they seem to lack “a neck.” He speaks of a flock, but there is not a single neck among them. His winter poem ponders self-protective behavior as it affects individuals and groups.
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Hla Yin Mon observes a change in everyday sound produced by the seasonal monsoon. This is a minimal way of noticing its major effect on life during the showers, and afterward on growing things. Stefanie Bucifal shows what may look like a sequential effect. When she walks barefoot, imprints made by her feet fill with rain, then sunshine. This could take hours, but if one imagines unusual weather with rain while the sun is shining, the sun’s brightness reflects even as rainwater collects.
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The judges are honored to have had the opportunity of reading so many fine haiku written throughout the English-speaking world during the past year. We love the long and continuing tradition of this lyric form in Japan. All you poets who have entered this competition contribute to its spread throughout the world, in a way that can be compared to the Italian sonnet sweeping Europe in the past.
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Congratulations to Alena Casey for her winning haiku, and to every runner-up, especially Stefanie Bucifal, Urszula Marciniak, and Andrew Shimield who appear for the second year in a row among the runners-up.
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RECOMMENDED BOOKS OF TRADITIONAL FORM HAIKU IN ENGLISH
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Mary Harwell Sayler, Haiku Happening (published in 2023 by an SCP member)
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Edith Shiffert, Kyoto Dwelling
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Richard Wright, Haiku: The Last Poetry of Richard Wright
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PETER PAUPER PRESS TRANSLATIONS OF JAPANESE CLASSICS
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Mr. Freeman —
Your I-know-what-Basho-really-meant argument is out of place. It’s intriguing, but it’s not material to the contest, to its judging process, or even, by your own admission, to your assessment of the winning work.
And what you are really challenging has very little to do with what Margaret has said or done. You are actually suggesting that a translator failed Basho’s work by not clearly vesting it in English with the Zen Buddhist philosophic intent that you believe Basho really cryptically meant in Japanese (but, like the poet he was, chose NOT to supply). And you are unfairly using Margaret as a scapegoat for that failure because she chooses to reason from Basho’s literal words and their likely poetic effect in English.
Basho’s words say what he said and omit what he omitted. And in English they mean to each of us what they mean. Nothing more and nothing less. And there is nothing evil about that. We don’t need to step into his philosophic sandals if we choose otherwise.
Margaret merely compared the “…dynamism of image and desire…” as she perceived it in the literal words of both works.
The essence of that dynamism is:
bird recognized
flight observed
reflection derived
The works are strikingly similar in that generic regard, though the birds are clearly different, the flight paths observed are clearly different, the omissions are clearly different, and the reflections derived are clearly different.
Margaret accurately described those similarities and differences simply to compliment Alena very carefully and very highly, recognizing comparable quality of phrasing and applauding Alena’s originality to implicitly affirm the absence of plaigarism..
Margaret spoke to her perceptions of poetic phrasing, not to either Basho’s life philosophy or Alena’s.
The contest was not about a Zen Buddhist picking the best Zen Buddhist emulation.
You might see Basho’s “dynamism” intent entirely differently than Margaret does — and you might not have preferred the traslation she cited — but that doesn’t render Margaret’s sense of Basho’s literal English words — and their likely effect — invalid.
The likelihood of you proving what Basho himself actually meant seems remote unless history has his authenticated explanation. You can certainly, however, where it’s material, purport and defend how you believe a devout Zen Buddhist is likely to interpret Basho’s words and omissions. And you can purport and defend how you believe a devout Catholic is likely to respond. And if you indeed prove such arguments, there are no doubt folks who will find your effort fascinating. But here, it’s immaterial.
What you can’t do is tell someone else they have to go about comparing and contrasting the poetic “dynamism” in two sets of literal words on your terms.
Where authors don’t fully say what they mean — whether deliberately or inadvertently — they indeed leave us each to surmise their intent from our own presumption or to ignore their intent and fashion their usefulness on the anvil of our own experience.
Portly Bard, SCP requires that you use your real name in comments. If you have a good reason to remain anonymous, please send an email to me or Evan, using your real name, with the reason that you should be considered differently than everyone else. Evan will decide whether you will be allowed to comment anonymously after we know who you really are.
Thanks,
Mike the Moderator
What are these pages and pages of ‘Basho Zen’ really about? The subtext reads: in Paul Martin Freeman’s opinion, he should have won! Sadly, for him, poetry is not about philosophy, religion and rationality; it’s about something completely different – and the best poem won: well done the judges!
I didn’t enter the competition. Check for yourself. But I agree, as I wrote to Alena (October 6), her poem soared above the rest.
Happy to see my haiku here in such good company and heartfelt thanks to the judges for giving individual commentary on each poem.