From November 2013 to January 2014, a total of 204 haiku and 16 tanka were submitted by 52 authors for this selection. The deadline for entries was January 15, 2014. Each participant could send in up to 5 haiku or tanka.

These works were anonymized before the selection began by Silvia Kempen, who also had the overall coordination. The jury consisted of Margareta Hihn, Christa Beau and Reiner Bonack. The members of the selection group did not submit their own texts.

All selected works (30 haiku and 6 tanka) are listed below alphabetically by author's name - up to max. three works per author.

“A haiku / a tanka that appeals to me in particular” - under this motto, every jury member has the opportunity to choose a work (still anonymized), present it here and comment on it.

The next submission deadline for the Haiku / Tanka selection is July 15, 2014.
Please send your haiku or tanka to the following email address in the future
(the postal address remains): Wahlen@deutschehaikugesellschaft.de

Only previously unpublished works can be submitted. No simultaneous submissions. Please send the submissions in the mail body, no attached files.

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.

Silvia Kempen

A haiku that particularly appeals to me

Selected and commented by Christa Beau:

The topic around the family, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, children, grandchildren etc. is not innovative. Nevertheless, it will always be part of our life, will always stimulate our thoughts, motivate us to capture moments of coexistence in haiku.

As a rule, it is father and mother who bring us up. In the first part of our lives, they are our caregivers who protect, protect, and protect those who love us.

But at some point it is we, the adult children, who take care of mothers or fathers. No matter whether it is your own parents or people who are entrusted to us in homes, in assisted living.

From this point of view, the haiku touched me:

freezing lake
Mother draws
your last wish

Helga Stania

There is a lot between what has been said. An old woman, perhaps an old woman, is drawing her last wish. She may sign her last will, the will.
What fate is behind her? Can't she write anymore? She draws. Does she have no other language?
Maybe she is in a home. Someone is drawing with her. A way of expressing themselves that was part of the mother's life.
And the "freezing lake" closes. As the mother's life will close.

A successful haiku for me.

Selected and commented by Reiner Bonack:

at the cemetery entrance
the girl with the cell phone
kills time

Peter Wissmann

The author of this haiku suggests a viewer who is outside of the actual happenings in the cemetery and who interprets the situation somewhat prematurely with his evaluation. That was how I initially understood what was said. Because: The third line contains not only the communication of an apparently obvious fact, but also a rating, is a metaphor for boredom, lazing around, hanging out, lost time. Hanging out, and that at the entrance to the cemetery, could be seen shaking his head or outraged. See, she's killing her life with senseless gimmicks, while others died early and most would have loved to have lived a few more years.

After reading it several times, other readings opened up for me.

The girl may be waiting for something or someone, passing the time, which would then no longer be used as senselessly as it seems at first glance. Because it doesn't turn thumb. It even moves more than a finger. In her own understanding, the girl may be doing something that makes life (waiting) exciting and interesting, what is important to him, more important than the dead, near whom (are they close to her?) She understands in a not only registering way Observer must please appropriately, that is, according to the expectations of the "adults" to "perform".

(The haiku also subliminally conveys the top view of those "adults" who naturally assume that the boys, because of boredom and a lack of other interests, use their cell phones (toys) to call up or communicate only insignificant things.)

The fact that the girl is standing at the cemetery entrance can also point to it: she has withdrawn from the place of mourning and remembrance to the edge, may have the feeling of being disturbing with the cell phone in the cemetery.

Or: It is "no longer in the mood" for a ritual that is repeated almost daily or weekly. Reminder: "Grandma, what are we doing today?" Today is Wednesday. We always go to the cemetery. ”

Or: it has no relation to the dead, to the dead in the cemetery and is tired of feigning dismay?

Or: Was the girl - it seems to me possible - so agitated by visiting the cemetery, by becoming aware of pain and grief that she had to leave the cemetery first, gain distance from this experience (also by "killing time") ) without being able to completely detach yourself from the place of the experienced?

This haiku seems to me to be open to a range of interpretations and yet not interpretable at will. Therefore I find it very successful.

The selection

On the calendar
still marked thick
his birthday

Marita Bagdahn

Thaw -
in old rooms
new sounds

Cezar-Florin Ciobîcă

Holy Night -
the light of the fresh snow over
the old crib

Cezar-Florin Ciobîcă

the blue of spring
in the eyes
of the old man

Frank Dietrich

Aromatherapy -
in the hallway
a strange perfume

Frank Dietrich

Mannequin -
she tells him that her breasts
are not real

Frank Dietrich

winter sun
between pillow and blanket
Mother's little face

Heike Gericke

Old Town restaurant
overgrown with ivy
the memory

Hans-Jürgen Goehrung

Look up
in the emergency room
a violet blooms

Hans-Jürgen Goehrung

Winter night
rattling
a glass breaks

Hans-Jürgen Goehrung

Mountain path to Kyoto.
In front of a giant Buddha
stands a summer bouquet.

Saskia Ishikawa Franke

Hospital window.
Turtle on the railing
Pigeons in the full moon.

Saskia Ishikawa Franke

Zen temple garden,
barking from a piece of snow
Dog in silence.

Saskia Ishikawa Franke

South flight of the swans
the last in the feathers
Arctic light

Gerard Krebs

Sunrise
a cherry tree lit up
the Tempelhof

Gerard Krebs

East
I enter the void
of my day

Eva Limbach

Coffee to go -
with cold fingers
I sweeten after

Eva Limbach

he seventeen
them ninety-one - in between
a wheelchair

Ralph Gunther Mohnnau

dusk
grow silently
black hatching

Birgit Schaldach Helmlechner

The comfort of that night
Shine still wet
roofs

Birgit Schaldach Helmlechner

Eye contact
Grandmother bends over, smiling
to a smile

Angelica Seithe

old album
She turns a smile on her face

Angelica Seithe

freezing lake
Mother draws
your last wish

Helga Stania

zwielicht
on the window pane
a few more feathers

Helga Stania

The pressure too big -
now she is wearing long-sleeved sweaters
middle of July

Brigitte ten Brink

Blood drive
laughs from the poster
a born again

Brigitte ten Brink

in the staircase
the smell of yeast dough
Mother well again

Elisabeth Weber Strobel

at the cemetery entrance
the girl with the cell phone
kills time

Peter Wissmann

colorful pinwheels
hunt in winter storm
children cemetery

Peter Wissmann

The World
in the mirror of the lake.
It has wrinkles.

Birgit Zeller

"This time we're celebrating
together into the new year "
you said
and so I'm waiting for you
also on December 32nd

Tony Bohle

the song
we went to for the first time
danced
when he runs on the radio
you change the transmitter

Tony Bohle

the laundry scattered
the washing up pending
somewhere inbetween
I'm part of things
that litter your life

Tony Bohle

the cold moon
penetrates through the window ...
ich versuche
the unsaid words
to forget

Cezar-Florin Ciobîcă

The dear guests -
I'm counting on you too
fragrant jasmine!
passes in the still air
today the calm day

Dragan J. Ristic

Early at the garden gate
asks a wren
for asylum
His empire fell yesterday
Neighbor's saw victim

Monica Smollic