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2024
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HAIBUN (Judges: Terri French and Sean O'Connor)
Terri French Biography
Terri started her life as a creative writer when she was a child. While Terri has written prose and historical nonfiction, she finds her most satisfying creative outlet in poetry. Terri is drawn to haiku because of its concise use of words to encapsulate the profound moments of nature and the human experience. Terri is on the editorial team of the online journal, contemporary haibun online. She is past southeast regional coordinator of The Haiku Society of America and served as secretary and member-at-large for The Haiku Foundation. Terri is former editor of Prune Juice Journal of senryu and kyoka. Now retired, Terri and her husband Ray (and dog, Chaka) enjoy the nomadic lifestyle of full-time RVers, but soon hope to settle back down in Huntsville, Alabama.
Sean O’Connor Biography
On my first day at school, I was in tears as I was the only child with nothing to write with. Then, with a theatrical flourish, a lady gave me my first pencil. That was half a century ago, and since then I have (amongst other things) been a factory worker, a psychiatric nurse, worked in film production, toured internationally as a musician, and lived for five years in Japan. My interest in Japanese literature began in the early 1980’s when I discovered some books on Japanese haiku and culture in a bargain bin. In 1998 I became editor of the print journal Haiku Spirit. For two years I served as a judge in the Japan based Genjuan International Haibun Contest and in 2019 I established The Haibun Journal. Over the past 30 years my work has been translated into several languages, appeared in numerous anthologies, and published in journals worldwide. My first solo collection, Let Silence Speak, was shortlisted for The Touchstone Distinguished Books Award 2016 and my fourth title, Fragmentation, won the 2022 HSA Merit Book Award for Best Haibun Book. The Arts Council of Ireland awarded me Literature Bursaries, in 2021 and 2022, for which I am deeply grateful.
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First Place
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A Habit
by Susan Yavaniski, Cohoes, NY (U.S.)
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Surrendering its length
to the sea wind:
her black hair.
The way she has always walked, with her eyes fixed upon the earth, has yielded many things, including a trove of abandoned hair elastics in perfect condition. Utilitarian, frugal, eco-conscious, she brings them home, washes them, and reuses them in her own hair, which she routinely restrains. Still, there’s a side of her that sees in these bands a message, an invitation from some secret sorority of women and girls, who on city streets and mountain trails, in farm fields and in parking lots, on subways and in grocery stores, have pulled out the ties holding their ponytails, buns, and braids, and freed the length of their hair to the wind, and the sun, and the weather.
dawn
a fairy circle bursts
from the dew
*The poem in italics is by Santoka Taneda, translated by William Scott Wilson
Judges’ Comments:
The inclusion of poems by other writers in haibun is a long-established practice; however, it is rare in the English language. "A Habit" opens with a short poem by the Japanese poet Santoka. This sets up the theme of the piece and injects into it a welcome element of cultural verticality. The three sentences of prose that follow are remarkable in the way they develop, with quite unexpected changes of direction that the author manages to deliver in a smooth manner. There is a magical quality to the prose that is surprisingly convincing.
The prose is followed by a haiku that is also quite unpredictable. We are left with the idea that in removing the hair clasp this woman might free herself from whatever constraints are holding her from becoming her true and unfettered self, dancing like a fairy within the circle. Its final word is the well-chosen kigo ‘dew’ which brings to mind freshness, and suggests a new beginning, a new day.
Second Place
Fifty Years Ago
by Jenny Ward Angyal, Gibsonville, NC (U.S.)
Fifth month. No heartbeat. I’m sent home to wait. Nothing happens. I pack up the baby clothes—cardboard box, no label. Still nothing happens. The week seems endless. At last I’m sent to the hospital. Pitocin drips into my veins. I wait some more, give birth to a stillborn son. Gray.
I go home. Days of emptiness . . . until the blood comes, blood pooling on the sidewalk, splattering my shoes. It won’t stop. Back to the hospital. Dead tissue kept too long inside—my blood won’t clot. I need the fibrinogen in fresh whole blood. My world fades into shimmering paleness. A nurse calls her husband, who shares my blood type. He leaves his work and comes straightaway.
It’s no more than a distant memory now. But I read the news and wonder—if it happened today, would I be forced to carry a dead baby to term? Would I be put on trial and jailed for the body’s failings?
dead sparrow—
I bury it under
the climbing rose
Judges’ Comments
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The author’s decision to open "Fifty Years Ago" with clipped, almost awkward, sentences reinforce its emotionally difficult theme. It creates the sense of a narrator struggling to get the words out, so to speak. Gradually, the sentencing lengthens, strengthens, and with the passage of time (five whole decades) the narrator is comfortable enough to reflect on both the past and the present. These musings will no doubt be a challenge to some, perhaps a challenge to many readers. And yet, the author then delivers a haiku loaded with layers of emotional resonance; death accompanied by a resilience for life. A dead bird and the uplifting kigo ‘climbing rose’; a thing of beauty.
Third Place
Scheherazade
by Farah Ali, Brighton, UK
I’m in love with him, but shy and awkward, I lack the elegance of other girls. Sometimes I see traces of allure in the mirror, hummingbirds of premonition perhaps, hovering at my blurred edges, flitting away when I put my glasses back on. Today, the morning sun is merciless as I sip mint tea, grateful for my long sleeves and the fig tree’s shade. He yawns, gazing at the bubbling fountain within the walled garden. A dragonfly hovers, scattering iridescence. I struggle to think of something interesting to say, but he speaks first: “Read a poem. Or tell me a story.” My heart beats faster. I do write poetry, mournful djinn best hidden from respectable company. He laces his hands behind his head and leans back, eyes closed, expectant. I study his regal features and utter a silent prayer: All I have are words, words don’t fail me now. Taking a deep breath of rose-scented air, I weave a fantastical tale as if my life depends on it.
summer maghrib
our fingers sticky
with medjool
Judges’ Comments
This is a re-imagined and distilled first person account of the story of Scheherazade from the tales known in English as The Arabian Nights. It invests the story with the twist that she delivers a story as if her ‘life depends on it’ without realizing that her life is indeed contingent on her storytelling abilities. Its single paragraph is rich with sensory notes; the taste of mint tea, the bubbling fountain, a hovering dragonfly, the air rose scented.
Then a haiku with a two-word kigo as an opening line (kigo can be of more than a single word – e.g., New Year’s Eve). Maghrib, which refers to sunset, is a time of prayer. It is also the signal for fasting to be broken (traditionally with medjool dates). Summer is considered the most difficult time for fasting as the days are longer and its heat ensures extra challenges, so ‘summer medjool’ is laden with emotional connotation in what is also a very tactile haiku.