Between January 2015 and April 2015, a total of 254 haiku and 16 tanka were submitted by 71 authors for this selection. The deadline for entries was April 15, 2015. Each participant could send in up to 5 haiku or tanka.

These texts were anonymized by me before the selection began. The jury consisted of Claudia Melchior, Fried Schmidt and Ralf Bröker. The members of the selection group did not submit their own texts.

All selected texts (43 haiku and 1 tanka) are listed alphabetically by author's name - up to max. three works per author.

“A haiku / a tanka that particularly appeals to me” - under this motto, each jury member has the opportunity to choose one or up to three texts (still anonymized), present them here and comment on them.

Attention!

For the next issue (No. 110) our annual Kukai takes place again. This time in collaboration with the HHV. Direction: Ralf Bröker, Stefan Wolfschütz

From any participant a Haiku on the subject Home

to be submitted.

The Kukai takes place on July 9-14 on the Internet.

Petra Klingl

A haiku that particularly appeals to me

I selected three examples of humor in haiku from this enormous range of entries. For me, they stand out from the multitude of pure nature observations, the often-read and the well-crafted, because they offer something surprising or new in terms of content or perspective (Atarashimi) - and at the same time the mysterious (Yugen) and light (Karumi) in itself wear. They make concrete, in itself inconspicuous images tangible (Aware), because they touch through caesura and juxtaposition (Kireji). In doing so, they deliberately act differently from those texts that immediately provide the reader with what he needs to understand and how.

Of the roughly 40 haiku that I would publish, about half of me have no thought of textual changes. On two or three of these, I also attach a friendly, staring star. For me it stands for value for money, but remains invisible to the SOMMERGRAS reader. So that he necessarily goes in search of the magic that good haiku resides in.

subway: the shoes
don't look friendlier
than the faces

Bernd Haupteltshofer

A fine observation of your own observation and judgment. My head also goes from the eyes of my fellow commuters to the floor: because I want to avoid their eyes, because they certainly don't think anything good about me. So there is space for mindfulness everywhere, and there is also the temptation to value everywhere. And in this haiku I am not told that as wisdom, but shown to experience it. Wonderful.

fir treetops
from the pattering of the pigeons
curved

Valeria Barouch

I bent myself too. And with laughter. The composition is well crafted, especially the alliteration and the gentle honkadori let me feel: Above all the treetops there is not only calm.

solar crescent
the cleaning lady sucks
Stardust

Birgit Heid

“We are all made of stardust.” This is not only sung by the pop duo Ich + Ich, but has long been a slogan in the esoteric economy and is always associated with the terms supernovae and element factory in science. This haiku also shows us that everything around us was created from this wonder substance: even the skin cells, fly leg parts, pollen fragments, stone abrasion, metal molecules on our carpet. And the great source of our life today is, in the beginning and in the end, the product of the cosmic cycle - which of course becomes particularly clear to us on the (very finely indicated) day of the solar eclipse.

This juxtaposition shows religious people that a very special force works in our world. For everyone else, when looking at the work of the cleaning specialist, Marc Aurel's insight is enough: “Push aside everything else, hold on to just a little. Consider, among other things, that we only live in the present time, which is an imperceptible moment; the rest of the time has either already passed or is uncertain Our life is therefore something insignificant, insignificant also the corner of the earth where we live, insignificant finally the glory.

Selected and commented by Ralf Bröker

street painting
In the chalk box
also a pencil

Claudius Gottstein

I know: For many, my choice may make me a haiku haunted driver.
No kigo, no subtle literary world experience played over three gangs, not even the 17 syllables that are important for traditionalists.

A simple linguistic structure with three main words, an adverb and the preposition almost indispensable for a haiku. A simple description of the condition without verb, at least divided into three lines.

Why did this work become the Primus inter Pares among the many successful entries for me? In the dazzling, lyrically often a little detached haiku world, it is down-to-earth in the truest sense of the word, almost spartan, sober, close to reality. Who doesn't know the sympathetic, unnecessarily modest street artists from the inner cities of our big cities, who enrich our lives temporarily and in passing? Whether in Munich, Berlin, Paris or Brighton - between the station district and the beach promenade they barely earn their daily bread with guitar and chalk. The pencil in the box? I see it as a sign of the still smoldering hope for recognition, the unshakable dream of great art. If not today, then mañana.

And if you still need a connection to nature and the seasons: in winter and so street painters are rather difficult to find.

Selected and commented by Fried Schmidt

Good Friday
my hunger
nach dir

Gabriele Hartman

For me: pure haiku.
Classic (with Kigo), at the same time modern and short (a complete story - noticeably understandable - in five words), straight to the point, without any punctuation marks:
Lent / desire / anticipation / ...
Do you need more for a haiku?

Selected and commented by Claudia Melchior

The selection

Sunday rest -
unwritten haiku
up in the clouds

Johanes ancestor

Wait for something to stir
the old man and the cat
on the tanning bed.

Johanes ancestor

fir treetops
from the pattering of the pigeons
curved

Valeria Barouch

Ueno Park -
run barefoot, run
over cherry blossoms

Claudia Brefeld

Summer grass -
the painter is waiting
on the scent of the rain

Gerd Borner

Orion -
the old hound
groans in sleep

Cezar-Florin Ciobîcă

Full moon -
the thin ice of the pond
breaks easily

Cezar-Florin Ciobîcă

since her death
he just paints
Stillleben

Frank Dietrich

Brimstone
unsuspected
a day succeeds

Gerda Forester

The carousel is standing
But in the end it turns
Again only about you

Petra Gantner

cemetery sun
we are warmed up
from a violin

Heike Gericke

End of winter ...
in his eyes
it gets light

Heike Gericke

rainy day
learn the dolls
a new song

Heike Gericke

floral scent
the buzz
the power line

Hans-Jürgen Goehrung

End of vacation
Stau
on the copier

Claudius Gottstein

cool dark dom
it breathes from the confessionals -
children giggle

Ruth Guggenmos-Walter

Good Friday
my hunger
nach dir

Gabriele Hartman

growing light
what we don't have everything
verloren

Gabriele Hartman

bright streaks
his fingers are lost
in heaven

Gabriele Hartman

subway: the shoes
don't look friendlier
than the faces

Bernhard Haupteltshofer

solar eclipse
what pushed
between us?

Birgit Heid

Easter
the argument is again
kindled

Birgit Heid

solar crescent
the cleaning lady sucks
Stardust

Birgit Heid

bounces up and down
the flowered children's umbrella
in the middle of the puddle

Gerard Krebs

under all the snow -
tell Buddha do you smile
still?

Eva Limbach

“The tea from the jade green bowl
become empty

Ramona Left

"Ikebana -
the archesMorphoses from you and me

Ramona Left

Condolences
in the distance, someone
mows the lawn

Diana Michel Erne

in the stairwell
two voices rise
an octave

Eleanor Nickolay

Wait - I want to wait
until white clouds
leave the trees

Gontran peer

Battle noise fades away.
The orphaned knight's castle
in the children's room.

Wolfgang Roedig

Orphaned playground.
Trying on the swing
the heavenly child.

Wolfgang Roedig

Pill afterwards
while in the park
the magnolias hatch

Angelica Seithe

The time change -
the day out of the fabric.
Now the fifth tea!

Hildegund Sell

Attorney date.
His love is lost
in one file

Boris Semrov

January morning
the sun is laughing
from a travel brochure

Boris Semrov

Rainydays
a crow
cushions their nest

Helga Stania

Sunny autumn day
the butterfly is still flying
with a broken wing

Monica Smollich

Spring offer
her body
for eight fifty an hour

Martin Thomas

Blue session
the saxophonist is playing
my colors

Elisabeth Weber Strobel

in a new home
nothing taken away
than the old moon

Klaus-Dieter Wirth

march early
the blackbirds whistle
on the time change

Peter Wissmann

embryo entertainment
under the blanket
turn thoughts in circles

Peter Wissmann

Cut the lawn
the leaves are disposed of
the plants in a row
But the order undermines
the mole constantly

Monica Smollich