A total of 199 haiku by 73 authors and 30 tanka by 18 authors were submitted for this selection. The closing date for entries was October 15, 2017. I anonymized these texts before the selection began.

Each member of the DHG has the option of naming a submission that should be published on their own member page if the respective jury does not consider it. Only previously unpublished texts can be submitted (also applies to publications in blogs, forums, social media and workshops etc.). No simultaneous submissions please!

There is also the possibility to enter the haiku / tanka yourself:

DHG website / activities / haiku tank selection / online form
or please send to:
Wahlen@deutschehaikugesellschaft.de

The next deadline for the Haiku / Tanka selection is

January 15, 2018.

Each participant can submit up to five texts - three of which are haiku.

With the submission, the author gives consent for a possible publication in the DHG Agenda 2019 as well as http: /www.zugetextet.com/

At this point I would like to thank Petra Klingl for the years of coordinating the jury work and for the kind, patient help that was needed to be able to smoothly take over this beautiful task from her.

Eleanor Nickolay

Haiku selection from HTA

The jury consisted of Christa Beau, Gérard Krebs and Dagmar Westphal. The members of the selection group did not submit their own texts. All selected texts - 35 haiku - are published in alphabetical order of the authors' names. Up to max. two haiku per author added. "A haiku that particularly appeals to me" - this is the motto for each jury member to select up to three texts (still anonymized), to present and comment on them here.

Since the jury is made up of changing participants, I would like to cordially invite all interested DHG members to participate as a jury member in upcoming selection rounds.

A haiku that particularly appeals to me

Firefly dance
our neighbours
argue again

Hildegard Dohrendorf

It is a summer evening between June and July. The fireflies send their light signals to find each other to mate with. Your life is full of glamor, passion and romantic tragedy, because shortly after mating the love light burns up. The light of a worm begins again, actually it is beetles that glow, another is just going out. Subjectively, it seems to us like a dance.

The neighbors' quarrel stands against this. It is not your first argument. No, they're arguing again.

Maybe a couple, love, passion for each other has gone out. Like the light of a firefly.

For me a successful joke position and a successful haiku.

Selected and commented by Christa Beau

root path
my conversation
with father

Helga Stania

An extremely short haiku with nine syllables, and yet there is so much in it. Father and son (or daughter) are out and about in nature, in the forest. They also follow a path full of roots. When walking carefully, the son or daughter - and perhaps also the father - becomes aware of how much these roots on which the trees 'build' have in common with the conversation situation between the child and the father. It is also possible that the son or daughter is traveling alone and is reminded of the conversation with the father on the root path. The conversation is also about “roots”, this time of the child, about what the child has learned from the father. This can be positive and / or negative. Very often this is more than we are willing to admit.

You can't put it more minimalist. I would like the haiku even better, though root path Would NOT be in italics.

Selected and commented by Gérard Krebs

crane calls
on the windowsill
the light snaps

Simone K Busch

Cranes, Japan's messengers of happiness - they cross my house twice a year: in autumn from north to south and in spring from south to north, drawn by the light they follow.

Oh, unfortunately I can't move with them, I'm just a human being, weak and winglessly impossible. I open a casement, put my arms on the windowsill and listen to their calls that are slowly moving away.

Their bright calls echo in me for a while. And so the light stays with me as part of them and stops on the windowsill for a short time - twice a year. I pause in the hurry of my life, let the cranes bring me rest and a ray of hope - what luck!

Selected and commented by Dagmar Westphal

The selection

On the first day of school
with the bag in her arms
die eltern

Sylvia Bacher

around the campfire
they come out of hiding
the old songs

Christopher Blumentrath

in my boots
everything i have about
the mountains know

Christopher Blumentrath

Window shopping
my reflection
wears Chanel

Stefanie Bucifal

Stammtisch laughter
a quake
in every beer glass

Stefanie Bucifal

crane calls
on the windowsill
the light snaps

Simone K Busch

wind scraps
explore our words
autumn

Simone K Busch

Harvested fields.
In the pale sky
a falcon shakes.

Reinhard Dellbrugge

Firefly dance
our neighbours
argue again

Hildegard Dohrendorf

during the break
children laugh and screech -
a wallflower

Beate Fischer

Children calls.
The snow of the forest
is getting lighter.

Volker Friebel

Cyclades wind
The full moon drifts slowly
on the beach

Hans-Jürgen Goehrung

the first cry
blows the
last words

Gregor Graf

Under the chestnut
about childhood memories
stumble

Wolfgang founder

The candle
on your birthday -
this time a grave light

Erika Hanning

New Year's Day
we sprinkle salt
in old wounds

Gabriele Hartman

nobody reads anymore
in the garden opposite
the apples

Kerstin Hirsch

at the end of summer
about unripe grapes
rain runs down

Anne Holtz

phone ringing
her look
flutters away

Anne Holtz

October light
still talking
Cricket and brook

Angelica Holweger

through the fog
the glow
on the rose hip slope

Use Jacobson

The crab cutter
With its networks
he fishes seagulls from the sky

Deborah Karl Brandt

AG Meeting
a drop in the window
hesitates

Silvia Kempen

chestnuts
in my hand
childhood memories

Petra Klingl

old pond ...
what are you waiting for
the frog asks me

Eva Limbach

Glacier hike ...
hidden in the blue ice
the elapsed time

Ramona Left

in the longwall
the face of the tusker
when the plane starts

Ramona Left

whisper
we follow the flight
the dragonfly

Eleanor Nickolay

Autumn crocus
on the playground of yesteryear
rows of houses

Eleanor Nickolay

ich vermisse
my daughter's voice
with every mail

Rene Possel

wanderlust
across Romania
mit dem finger

Sonja Raab

agricultural mustard blossom
distorted by the storm
the cries of the crows

Birgit Schaldach Helmlechner

root path
my conversation
with father

Helga Stania

girl face
i read the tracks
your future

Peter Wissmann

after the family reunion
in the train
the rattling of thoughts

Peter Wissmann

HTA tanka selection

In the past, HTA jury members repeatedly suggested that the Tanka jury be outsourced, as jury members felt overwhelmed to make a well-founded selection for the Tanka submissions. The board of directors consulted, as competence was important to us here too, and explained itself on request Tony Bohle and Silvia Kempen ready to permanently take over this area of ​​HTA selection.

With this SUMMER GRASS edition, the time has come: We have a permanent Tanka jury. Silvia Kempen and Tony Böhle introduce themselves briefly in advance, and an introductory article is not missing!

The editors are happy!

All selected texts - 5 Tanka - are published in alphabetical order of the author's names.

"A tanka that appeals to me particularly" - texts are presented and commented on under this motto.

Tanka - what is it?
Tony Bohle

What a tanka actually is, this question has occupied me for a very long time and still concerns me today. Usually one would be tempted to say a poem in five lines of 5‑7‑5‑7‑7 syllables - we all learned that at the beginning. But to see the tanka in this way, from a purely formal point of view, is certainly the simplest definition, but also the most superficial. The rule of 31 syllables applies to tanka as much or as little as the 17 syllables to haiku and has always been set aside in the country of its origin for one or the other artistic goal. The same applies to the division into five lines or segments. What makes the essence of the Tanka, its taste, as some say, only becomes apparent at second glance and after many hours of reading. The best answer to the question of the nature of tanka has already been given by the old Japanese masters and is in the preface to Kokin Wakashu, probably the most famous classic tanka collection, impressively summed up:

"Without much effort, it moves heaven and earth, soothes the feelings of invisible spirits and gods, creates harmony between men and women and brings calm to the hearts of angry warriors." [1]

Even if ghosts, gods and angry warriors no longer really fit into our times, this sentence has lost none of its validity. Every generation of Tanka authors, especially in the 20th century, had to find their own answer to how to move heaven and earth in just five lines without effort. If you deal with the big names (Akiko Yosano, Ishikawa Takuboku, Saito Mokichi, Shuji Terayama, Tawara Machi) you will be amazed at how different and always fascinating new these answers can be. They explore their own deepest abysses, put their fingers in the open wounds of society, provoke, provoke resistance, consider the small and the large, mystify, observe coolly, surprise, complain, lend their voice to the unheard of and never stay on one beaten path, but looking for the new.

While reading, I also asked myself whether everything had not been said for a long time or what was left to write. Fortunately, the answer is a whole lot. Those who walk through our modern world with open eyes, observe technology, advertising, media, contradictions, absurdities, injustices and interpersonal relationships will find inspiration in abundance. Would you like a small sample?

I want the dent
Simply in my straw hat
Let it be
As if she were one too
My travel souvenir

Tawara Machi [2]

as if out of fear
that you hear
what I think
involuntarily
receding
in front of the stethoscope

Ishikawa Takuboku [3]

Ferris wheel
just turn around
The memory lasts
for you for a day
for a lifetime

Kuriki Kyoko [4]

Unleashed by myself
I am only
a passing thought
in the spirit
of the woods

Claire Everett [5]

how to keep your distance
to an injured animal,
waits for it
lets you in - just that
you stay away, I'm not an animal

Ingrid Kunschke [6]

A tanka can be so wonderfully simple and lyrical, move heaven and earth without effort and us right away! What a tanka actually is, especially a good one, everyone must answer this question for themselves. One thing, however, is never: boring.

[1] www.TankaNetz.de, As of November 19.11.2016, XNUMX
[2]Christine Mitomi, The “Sarada Kinenbi” by the poet Tawara Machi: Research into the success of a poetry collection in Japan, 1990.
[3]Sad toy. Poems and prose. Frankfurt am Main 1991, island
[4]"If there were no cherry blossoms ..." Tanka from 1300 years., Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2009 [5]Thirty-one, Issue 14, August 2016
[6]www.TankaNetz.de, as of November 19.11.2016, XNUMX

Brief introduction by Silvia Kempen
Tony Bohle

I have known Silvia Kempen for quite a while through her contributions from summer grass and haiku today. I only really got to know her a little later. It was at Ralf Brokers Haiku NRW meeting in Ochtrup on July 5, 2014, and Costa Rica was losing to the Netherlands in the World Cup quarter-finals. Born in 1958, Silvia has been involved in haiku since 2005, has been a member of the DHG since 2007, a member of the DHG's extended board and member of the SG editorial team from 2009 to 2013, then a short-term coordinator of the HTA and, since November 2013, operator of the blog Tageshaiku https: //tageshaiku.blogspot.de/. So it seems almost astonishing that besides this abundance of tasks there is still time for writing haiku, haibun and designing photo haiga. And Tanka? Yes, they weren't neglected either! At a haiku meeting in Bad Nauheim, it was the presentation of the book "If there were no cherry blossoms ...", which sparked Silvia's interest in this form. In 2009 and 2010 she worked in a Tanka group under the guidance of Ingrid Kunschke and then in a Tanka group under my leadership from 2015 to 2016. Beyond all this data and facts, it is probably best to introduce Silvia through one of her tanka:

look right and left
to the sky and to the ground
Exercises
the balance of the world
readjusted again

Brief introduction by Tony Böhle
Silvia Kempen

By Tony Böhle and Tanka-Magazin Thirty-one I heard it for the first time in July 2013, on the Facebook page haiku-like by Ralf Bröker. I got to know him personally a year later in Ochtrup at the NRW Haiku meeting of Ralf Bröker.

The first edition of Thirty-one was published by Tony as the founder in May 2013. Valeria Barouch has been supporting him since spring 2017. Tony discovered his interest in Japanese verse early on and wrote his first haiku in 2012. In the same year he joined the DHG. He describes the first haiku as a complete failure. He is now 34 years old and rarely writes haiku. He found his real home in Tanka. But why actually? He comments as follows:

“Although I hardly write haiku anymore, I do appreciate its compact form and the condensed content. At the same time, the form has always pushed me to the limits that I wanted to shake off: writing less compressed and less reticent myself. Then when I got my hands on the first volume with modern tanka - it was Sad toy by Ishikawa Takuboku -, I knew it was exactly what I was looking for. I think you should definitely try both forms, explore their strengths and weaknesses and then decide what best suits your style. ”

Finally, I would like to introduce a tanka written by Tony:

in this world
are you something like me
a sword and shield:
my bright white smile
and the wrinkle-free shirt

A tanka that particularly appeals to me

after the rain
the reflecting faces
of the way -
sometimes laughing
under colorful foliage

Angelica Seithe

Before the rain, I can only see the path itself while walking down the street, but "after the rain" there is much more to discover through the puddles, it is like a second world that leads into the depths. And it reflects the faces of the upper world. In this context, I see "face" as a metaphor for the souls of trees, grasses or what else can be found along the way.

A way forward or back, that could mean subliminally, that this also means the past life path, on which faces line up from memory and the respective time with their feelings are reflected in the faces.

In Chinese Buddhism, the mirror is one of the eight precious things, it means the soul in a state of purity; the enlightened mind; but also sincerity. With a soul in a state of purity, the thought of the innocence of children is obvious. And that's where the second part of the Tanka takes me.

"Sometimes laughing / among colorful leaves" - Who does not know from childhood to dig into the leaves, so that only the leaves are visible. This is huge fun and that includes laughing, at least when you can no longer control yourself.

Do children do something like this when the foliage is damp or even wet? I think so". A mother recently told me that her daughter (in kindergarten age) would even seal through puddles.

Selected and commented by Silvia Kempen

The selection

Bar fight!
now I will
they need
my 2%
Neanderthal DNA

Frank Dietrich

Dandelion meadow.
At the horizon
the lines
near mountains.
How beautiful the world is
without love.

Volker Friebel

he takes his time
with his answer
one turns
and then licks the word
maybe

Gabriele Hartman

Autumn -
On the quays
in the museum harbor
the wind whistles
through the bare rigging

Annelie Chalice

after the rain
the reflecting faces
of the way -
sometimes laughing
under colorful foliage

Angelica Seithe