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Only previously unpublished works can be submitted.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 wishHelga 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 timePeter 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 birthdayMarita Bagdahn
Thaw -
in old rooms
new soundsCezar-Florin Ciobîcă
Holy Night -
the light of the fresh snow over
the old cribCezar-Florin Ciobîcă
the blue of spring
in the eyes
of the old manFrank Dietrich
Aromatherapy -
in the hallway
a strange perfumeFrank Dietrich
Mannequin -
she tells him that her breasts
are not realFrank Dietrich
winter sun
between pillow and blanket
Mother's little faceHeike Gericke
Old Town restaurant
overgrown with ivy
the memoryHans-Jürgen Goehrung
Look up
in the emergency room
a violet bloomsHans-Jürgen Goehrung
Winter night
rattling
a glass breaksHans-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 lightGerard Krebs
Sunrise
a cherry tree lit up
the TempelhofGerard Krebs
East
I enter the void
of my dayEva Limbach
Coffee to go -
with cold fingers
I sweeten afterEva Limbach
he seventeen
them ninety-one - in between
a wheelchairRalph Gunther Mohnnau
dusk
grow silently
black hatchingBirgit Schaldach Helmlechner
The comfort of that night
Shine still wet
roofsBirgit Schaldach Helmlechner
Eye contact
Grandmother bends over, smiling
to a smileAngelica Seithe
old album
She turns a smile on her faceAngelica Seithe
freezing lake
Mother draws
your last wishHelga Stania
zwielicht
on the window pane
a few more feathersHelga Stania
The pressure too big -
now she is wearing long-sleeved sweaters
middle of JulyBrigitte ten Brink
Blood drive
laughs from the poster
a born againBrigitte ten Brink
in the staircase
the smell of yeast dough
Mother well againElisabeth Weber Strobel
at the cemetery entrance
the girl with the cell phone
kills timePeter Wissmann
colorful pinwheels
hunt in winter storm
children cemeteryPeter 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 32ndTony Bohle
the song
we went to for the first time
danced
when he runs on the radio
you change the transmitterTony Bohle
the laundry scattered
the washing up pending
somewhere inbetween
I'm part of things
that litter your lifeTony Bohle
the cold moon
penetrates through the window ...
ich versuche
the unsaid words
to forgetCezar-Florin Ciobîcă
The dear guests -
I'm counting on you too
fragrant jasmine!
passes in the still air
today the calm dayDragan J. Ristic
Early at the garden gate
asks a wren
for asylum
His empire fell yesterday
Neighbor's saw victimMonica Smollic