A total of 229 haiku from 79 authors and 36 tanka from 21 authors were submitted for this selection. The deadline for submissions was April 15, 2019. 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 the member's own page if the jury disregards it.

Can be submitted only previously unpublished texts (also applies to publications on blogs, forums, social media and workshops etc.).

Please preferably Haiku / Tanka collected in one operation Enter yourself in the online form on the DHG website:

deutschehaikugesellschaft.de/haiku-und-tanka-die-wahl/

The next deadline for the Haiku / Tanka selection July 15, 2019.

Each participant can submit up to five texts - three of which are haiku. With the submission the author gives that Consent for a possible publication

in the DHG's 2020 Agenda

as well as on http://www.zugetextet.com/

and the website of Haiku International Association (HIA)

Haiku selection from HTA

The jury consisted of Gregor Graf, Ruth Karoline Mieger and Birgit Schaldach-Helmlechner. The members of the selection group did not submit their own texts.

All selected texts - 32 haiku - are published in alphabetical order of the author's names. Up to max. added two haiku per author.

"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.

Eleanor Nickolay

A haiku that particularly appeals to me

opening buds
the delicate envelopes
the silent one

Helga Stania

A special poem, both in form and content, that contains all the elements of a successful haiku. It is short, open, present, a touch of Zen and a puzzle at the same time. The haiku makes me feel silent.

It is spring, delicate buds are opening everywhere. The cherry blossoms still have the white of winter, and a miracle is visible in every blossom. It happens silently year after year in the midst of the noise of construction machinery, cars and airplanes, the ringing of cell phones, shouts of children, radio and television.

Flooded by all the stimuli that we are exposed to every day, we yearn for silence more and more. Quiet times have become vital.

But what is silence? A place without any noise? Even in a soundproof room there is still the sound of your own breath. The silent growth of the apple tree? With highly sensitive microphones, the circulation of the juices can be made audible. Silence outside is not possible. You can only find it inside, experience it. Silence is a precious commodity, something delicate that is easily disturbed.

How easily I let myself be disturbed when I think I am in silence. Through a tap that is dripping? I didn't notice him during the day. He annoys me at night and I can't sleep because of it.

How and where can I find silence? Maybe on a walk in the forest, or when I climb a mountain to become still like the mountain? Perhaps I will retire to a monastery, practice sitting and breathing, listening to the leaves falling in autumn. In the silence the senses can open, a lot is hidden that wants to unfold. But it can also be that external silence creates restlessness, fears. I read somewhere that when the outside gets quiet, the noise starts inside. I might find peace of mind when listening to music, painting, jogging.

But now it's the end of the day and I want to be left alone! The garden is quiet, the lilac wants to smell.

Selected and commented by Gregor Graf.

Farewell
… on the plate
still bread

Horst Oliver Buchholz

Farewell. Even this word at the beginning of haiku opens up a wide space for memories and the associated emotions. The author leaves it open whether it is a daily or farewell for a long time. Does a child go to school, the partner to work? Does the daughter say goodbye to start studying abroad? The feelings triggered by a farewell are as different as the reasons for the farewell.

Aren't the many goodbyes that are part of life a preparation for the final goodbye?

In the second and third lines we learn that there was food. There is neither meat nor vegetables on the plate, but bread. In the symbolism, bread stands for community and life. Bread preparation and bread as a staple food were highly valued in Europe. The importance of bread is reflected in the customs (baked goods in the annual cycle), in religion, literature, art and in numerous proverbs.

At a time when more and more people are lonely, haiku addresses the value of the nourishing community without moralizing.

In a few words, the haiku refers to existential topics.

Selected and commented by Ruth Karoline Mieger.

Kindergarten
The old ways
Go one more time

Taiki Haijin

Moving fourteen syllables, an appeal in the opening line that immediately arouses emotions, because Kindergarten becomes the decipherable (W) place.

Entering kindergarten is the first major change. Get out of the parental home! Dealing with peers, getting to know group situations and coping with strange rules. Curiosity, a thirst for discovery, joyful light-heartedness make this step into the new world easy. There is definitely a desire in each of us to want to save, above all, benevolent memories about our adult life. Happiness, songs in the morning circle, praise for a particularly successful handicraft, exuberant romp, interesting play equipment, exciting excursions ... and so on. But who doesn't know the other side, these waves of emotions? Anxious palpitations in the foreign environment, inscribes themselves into my self-image and may have an impact on how I behave in later life. For example, there is a fear of being stronger, anger boiling that I have not resisted, or disappointment flares up because nobody has helped me. Tears roll there because I was not allowed to play again, and there is the shameful feeling of teasing that I prefer to sink into the ground.

The old ways open memory windows, they lead into autobiographical experiences that cannot be described with intellectual possibilities alone. Much from a time when I only have fragmented, conscious access is burned into the body by memory because it is linked to intense memories of people and formative experiences. In this way, even a concrete place, the outer face of which may have changed significantly over time, years, even decades later, details, noises, smells, plastic images and sensations that were believed to be lost in the inner experience ...

The capitalization when entering using The in the second and Still the third line emphasizes the immediate presence of what is remembered, as if neither a temporal nor an emotional spacer had shifted between the present and the past. A lot is visibly addressed without having to be explicitly said. It is not primarily about nostalgic feeling. However, I don't get any more specific reasons for this flashback to childhood.

Maybe targeted search for traces during a visit? It could be that someone has returned to make peace with a piece of personal history, or to find social backing through a connection to their home town in a current life crisis. However, it is also quite conceivable to be on the 'old ways' to kindergarten for the first time together with the son, the daughter, perhaps also a grandchild.

A common saying when relatives came earlier: "Man, but you grew up!"

Everyone carries their memories of their own childhood and also of the time when you see your own offspring grow and grow out of their infancy ... The longing for belonging is deeply rooted in us. And I just wish even more that many treasures of memory are anchored in the memory.

Selected and commented by Birgit Schaldach-Helmlechner

The selection

Traffic jam -
a small hand conjures
smiling faces

Valeria Barouch

wild raspberries
again i will
to delay

Christopher Blumentrath

annual meeting
we dig through
the first layer

Christopher Blumentrath

Arrival of the starlings
point by point
on paper

Marcus Blunck

the night is thawing -
is reflected in the slices
old and new light

Gerd Borner

Spring awakening ...
faded in the sun
a plastic tulip

Horst Oliver Buchholz

bees die
the clown is picking
an imaginary flower

Frank Dietrich

downpour
the tulips bow
in front of the violets

Hildegard Dohrendorf

as if they had everything
understood this winter ...
Cherry blossoms

Bernadette Duncan

Beautiful living
into the waste paper - the moon
on his bank of clouds

Bernadette Duncan

In the ditch
the first colored spots
plastic bags

Susanne Effert-Hartmann

lifelines
on the signal box
tendrils roses

Hans-Jürgen Goehrung

Near the sea
in its murmur
silent thoughts

Wolfgang founder

Kindergarten
The old ways
Go one more time

Taiki Haijin

at the crossroads
I don't know anything
by him

Gabriele Hartman

lunar landscape
to mix his hands
Water and flour

Gabriele Hartman

about the cemetery…
"Unforgettable"
only the ravens

Bernhard Haupteltshofer

May rain
on the old woman's face
you girls smile

Anne Holtz

silk blue night
whisper a wish
in the ear of the moon

Anne Holtz

Chopin's Waltz -
hover, hover ...
in the lilac rush

Use Jacobson

Wood anemones already
marked in red on the calendar
your arrival

Silvia Kempen

first snow
the scent of
new light

Gerard Krebs

Temporary monastery -
to open a window
for the stray

Eva Limbach

Apartment dissolution…
in the cigar box
the photo of me

Eva Limbach

blind mirror
deep inside me the melody of the old children's song

Ramona Left

Stroll through town ...
the cherries are blooming
on opaque glazing

Ramona Left

window seat
her gaze wanders
about windows files

Eleanor Nickolay

homeless -
search the church tower
at the horizon

Angelica Seithe

the light
extinct stars
wood crosses

Helga Stania

opening buds
the delicate envelopes
the silent one

Helga Stania

morning fog
a ray of sun hits
my spring dreams

Brigitte Weidner

in the wheelchair
eight beetles again today
verschont

Friedrich winemaker

HTA tanka selection

Tony Böhle and Silvia Kempen selected four tanka.

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

A tanka that particularly appeals to me

Father's hand
on my shoulder
knighting
with a flat blade the son
that I never was

Gabriele Hartman

On the occasion of Pentecost, Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa organized a court day in Mainz in 1184, during which his two sons Heinrich and Friedrich were given a special honor. The two young men were personally given the sword by their father and emperor. At the time, this ritual was primarily intended as a dynastic claim to power by the Staufer, the knighthood has been preserved to this day as recognition for special achievements in our language. If the time of armored horsemen has been over for centuries, in Britain the nobility with the sword by the monarch still exists today, albeit with a different meaning.

If one becomes aware of the enormous symbolic meaning, it is only possible to grasp what meaning the lyrical ego attaches to the father's shoulder thumper, which seems rather trivial to the outside. Clues to this can be found by taking a closer look at the language. The paternal hand is stylized into the flat but sharp blade of a sword. Not only can it symbolically honor, it can also injure, cut off limbs or even heads - at the discretion of its owner. This comparison suggests an ambivalence in the father-son relationship, somewhere between fear of the severity of the father and the desire for recognition.

Another reason why the Tanka leaves an impressive effect is the guidance to the last line, in which the text culminates. If the shoulder thumper "with a flat blade" had already sounded atmospheric disturbances, the reason for this is now more clearly revealed. The lyrical self describes itself as "the son / who I was never". It remains unclear whether it is a painful look at one's own (wrong) behavior or a feeling that the father gave him. But another reading is also conceivable: Does the aged father look and see in the lyrical ego perhaps the son he always wanted, a kind of son that the lyrical ego was never or never wanted to be? One would be excited to learn more, but everything that is necessary for an outstanding tanka has already been said. More backgrounds, explanations or justifications would only take away the boiling point of this moment.

Selected and commented by Tony Böhle

The selection

On the steep slope
my head bends
soaked with sweat
before the buttercup
crowned by morning dew

Valeria Barouch

moonlight
on the pillow
next to me
if I turn around
or not

Frank Dietrich

Father's hand
on my shoulder
knighting
with a flat blade the son
that I never was

Gabriele Hartman

for some salt
asks the new neighbor
and widen the way
from his
to our door

Gabriele Hartman

ich habe Angst
that I'm running out of time
and me one day
must be surprised to see
all clocks stand still

Erika Uhlmann