2012 Results

—— At the first edition of The Haiku Contest SHARPENING THE GREEN PENCIL organized by Romanian Kukai Group have participated 140 poets from 6 continents and 31 countries as follows: AFRICA: Nigeria (1); ASIA: India (3), Israel (1), Philippines (1); AUSTRALIA: Australia (4), New Zealand  (4); EUROPE: Austria (2), Belgium (5), Bosnia and Herzegovina (3), Bulgaria (1), Croatia (23), France (2), Germany (8), Hungary (1), Italy (3), Lithuania (9), Malta (1), Netherlands (3), Poland (8), Portugal (1), Romania (24), Serbia (7), Spain (2), Sweden (2), Switzerland (2), United Kingdom (3); NORTH AMERICA: Canada (3), Cuba (1), Trinidad and Tobago (1), United States (9); SOUTH AMERICA: Brazil (2). The organizers would like to express their gratitude to the participants for such a large interest and invite everyone to participate in the second edition, which will start in February 2013. Corneliu Traian ATANASIU,  President of the Jury Cezar Florin CIOBÎCĂ, Member of the Jury Dan DOMAN, Member of the Jury Eduard ŢARĂ, Secretary Congratulations to the winners and commended haiku poets.

WINNERS

First Prize the hunter's moon a night is not enough to get the point Artūras ŠILANSKAS Vilnius, LITHUANIA Cezar Florin Ciobîcă: I ask myself, after reading and analysing this haiku, why did the jury like it, and why did it emerge winner in this contest? This is a very good haiku because it creates the context of perceptual experience through which  the reader may infer a broader context that resonates with life. The fragment is visual and contains the most famous autumn kigo leads us into the old world of hunters. They were killing  their prey by  sanguine moonlight, stockpiling food for the winter ahead. The phrase, especially the last line,  has a mysterious ending  and contributes to the ambiguity of the poem. It grabs the attention of readers and forces us to find an answer to the question why a single night   is not enough to get the point? What should be understood? This is a pretty deep question that captures our imagination  and makes us to think about. I  tried therefore to find an explanation for the end of the poem that allows the reader to speculate. It can be assumed it is about regret, disappointment, resignation, pain due to a loss, a trauma  which  left deep traces into the soul. This poignant and subtle haiku, a piece of ,,open work”, deserves first place because the texture and the atmosphere do its adequate work to complete the impression for the reader  and to leave some tension unresolved. The expectation of most readers is that every tension will be resolved by the final line.  I like to think that the  final line lead us toward a particular conclusion, without having to spell out exactly how the mistery resolves. That way, the tension is still alive, and the story, grievous, but plausible and well crafted, can live beyond it’s lines.

Second Prize falling leaves one by one my old friends Andrea CECON Cividale del Friuli, ITALY Corneliu Traian Atanasiu: Well constructed, the poem is like a rocking chair with the board supported by the pivotal phrase - one by one. The first and the last line are in a dynamic balance and their swing makes, one by one, each to occupy the higher position, to be the one that, for now, dominates the other. Thus, the two lines contaminate each other in meaning and we understand that the perspective we are urged to take is the one of the person in the fall of his life when friends gently leave this life, just like the leaves from the branch on which they stood. At this stage of decryption of the poem, one by one comes back modulating the pace of the fall: it’s not storm or flood, but a certain slowness and a special balance: the leaves and the people seem to detached from life in a state of abandonment, a slow, swinging fall.

Third Prize rattling windows dad gasps his final breath during a blizzard Karen O'LEARY West Fargo, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Corneliu Traian Atanasiu: Between interior and exterior, between the human and the natural space, the windows’ rattle. Despite their rigidity, windows vibrate both at the outside wrath and the interior tragedy. Inelastic, however, they are still transparent to the human suffering and the turmoil of the time. They struggle ready to break. As if, although standing between two worlds in order to separate them, would like to take part in their struggle. But the English word rattling speaks about some sensitive windows that were infected by what is going on in each of its sides: throbbing, they rumble and rattle at the same time.

COMMENDATIONS

whiz of a scythe in the transparent blueness larks’ undersongs Ljubomir DRAGOVIĆ Banja Luka, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
	sumi-e mountains a blackbird tries to fly from the drying ink Darrell LINDSEY Nacogdoches, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
snow storm – petrified raven travelling on a withered tree Ljubomir RADOVANČEVIĆ Zagreb, CROATIA
	in the dream my dead friend has to go winter solstice Bruce ROSS Bangor, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
peach season – the way his foot fits my hand Sandra SIMPSON Tauranga, NEW ZEALAND
	woodland the silence of history Dietmar TAUCHNER Puchberg, AUSTRIA
His roots and branches hold earth and sky together – the old oak tree. Herwig VERLEYEN Bruges, BELGIUM