A total of 204 haiku and 54 tanka were submitted by 80 authors for this selection.

The closing date for entries was July 15, 2016. I anonymized these texts before the selection began. The jury consisted of Angelika Holweger, Gabriele Hartmann and Gerda Förster. The members of the selection group did not submit their own texts.

All selected texts - 26 haiku and 6 tanka - were published in alphabetical order of the author's names. Up to max. two haiku and two tanka per author.

"A haiku / a tanka that appeals to me particularly" - this is the motto for each jury member to choose up to three texts (still anonymized), to present and comment here.

The next closing date for the Haiku and Tanka selection is October 15, 2016.

Each participant can submit up to five works - of which only three haiku. With the submission, the authors give their consent for a possible publication on the website http://www.zugetextet.com

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.

The following applies to all submissions: They must not have been published anywhere, not in the print media and also not in digital media!

From now on you can enter the haiku / tanka yourself:

DHG website / Activities / Haiku Tanka selection / Online form

Or please send to: Wahlen@deutschehaikugesellschaft.de

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

Petra Klingl

A haiku that particularly appeals to me

evening ausritt
child's hand
he holds on

Helga Stania

He holds the child's hand. Provides support and courage, protection and security, community and bliss. He. The father? There is something big in this haiku. Responsibility, trust, comfort, love.

Eve. The day's work is done. This is the hour you've been waiting for. Now is the time to devote yourself to the family, to give away oneself, to share experiences, to cultivate a hobby, to live passion, to satisfy longing.

Ride. Is there a horse at all? Or the child sits on seinen Shoulders?

Did I trust when I was a child when I was sitting on Father's shoulders?

Then did he hold my hand?

Restlessness creeps up on me - I'd rather ride a pony.

When I was sitting on his back, nobody had to hold my hand.

And yet - spending time with father riding on his knee.

Father …

Isn't there a horse after all?

Maybe the two are sitting in a row?

Is mother leaving the riding arena on horseback? And father and child are watching her?

There, a change of gait! This easy gallop after the first line ... so listen to it!

For me, this haiku with a modern design and clear, unpretentious language has everything that makes a “successful” haiku: brevity, conciseness, rhythm, two levels, the images of which are far enough apart to create tension, and yet dense enough to preserve them (like hands holding each other), polarity contained in these pictures (1st ride = movement / hold = static and 2nd evening = age / child = youth), depth, sound, reverberation ... Not concrete enough ? It just doesn't bother me!

Commented by Gabriele Hartmann

wind turbines
breath
a mammoth

Dietmar Tauchner

A haiku that appears puzzling and inaccessible at first glance, but has stubbornly nestled in my head and continues to occupy me.

A good sign in my experience!

The haiku is short, has a juxtaposition of two pictures and brings something new in terms of content. The wind turbines are juxtaposed with “the breath of a mammoth”, a surprising combination, which, however, opens up the haiku to me as something mysterious.

The giant mammoths have of course long since died out. They took their last breath about four thousand years ago.

The noise that modern wind turbines produce could come close to the panting breath of such a huge animal. But that is not certainty, just an assumption that inspires my thoughts and leads to new associations.

I think of the breath, without which we could not live, that connects us with everything alive, the wind that blew in prehistoric times and also ruffled the fur of the mammoths, which made it possible for people to travel the oceans and to new continents discover who helped and still helps to grind the grain (an old windmill is still in operation in our district), which destroys what has built up as an angry storm and can also be gentle as a breath ,

Don Quixote comes to mind, his struggle against the windmills, which he considered dangerous giants. The mammoths, which still lived in the Young Pleocene, were among the hunting animals of the time and provided them with food, i.e. energy.

Didn't they look similarly scary?

At this point, I am happy to leave further ideas and associations to the readers.

For me, the sight of the huge, not necessarily beautiful and beloved wind turbines, which supply us with always renewable energy, will remain connected to these thoughts from now on.

This is the merit of this haiku, which in just five words builds a bridge from our time to prehistoric times and their living conditions.

Commented by Gerda Förster

Afternoon tea
they stir a lot of candy
into the bitterness

Angelica Knetsch

Afternoon tea - a tranquil mood, almost like a still life, fills the picture. But only at first. Because the 3rd line determines the character of the haiku. Bitterness!

My inner picture shows an older couple at the table, who is silent.

There is something unspoken, a long time stressful in the room. Maybe a horror message that you just got. The personal pronoun "she" in the plural says nothing precise about those present. So just a guess.

And there is the sugar candy, which is almost excessively stirred into the tea. Something sweet that can lift the mood for a moment and stirring, an activity that may be supposed to structure an uncomfortable silence.

A thought-provoking haiku that touches me.

Commented by Angelika Holweger

Church concert -
a sunbeam crosses yours
violin line

Angelica Seithe

I thought a lot about this haiku. A sunbeam crosses yours
violin line, A sound experience overlaid with a symbolic visual moment. However, I first had difficulties with the possessive pronoun (possessive pronoun) "your". But maybe the personal relationship between the listener and the violinist is important here? Otherwise this moment might not have been noticed.

Fascinating for me here that the sun (called “Brother Sun” in the sun song by F. v. Assisi) takes part in the concert unasked and actively.

A haiku with the statement of an entire sermon!

Commented by Angelika Holweger

The selection

15 points were achieved.

her diary in German script
die Kinder
do not occur

Martin Berner
12 points

Drive to the funeral
You have
reached their destination

Martin Berner
10 points

Heat wave -
a truck sprinkles the way
with straw

Valeria Barouch
7 points

newly in love
on the pallet
a new red

Frank Dietrich
13 points

The big bird
dissolves into two small ones.
Dawn.

Volker Friebel
12 points

Interview -
our handshake
divides time

Taiki Haijin
8 points

EM game
the nuances of his snoring

Birgit Heid
10 points

drought
bloom on the asphalt
chalk flowers

Anne Holtz
14 points

all that happened
under the rubble
his picture

Use Jacobson
12 points

Bachelor Parties
among the shards
Mother's Ostfriesenrose

Silvia Kempen
12 points

Afternoon tea
they stir a lot of candy
into the bitterness

Angelica Knetsch
11 points

Twilight -
receive the evening primroses
first guests

Renate Kueppers
12 points

Late summer -
I steal the straw flowers
a handful of seeds

Eva Limbach
9 points

sinking sun
he speaks of different ones
wavelength

Diana Michel Erne
12 points

vibrating rope
in the gondola to the mountain station
suddenly silence

Ruth Caroline Mieger
9 points

metamorphoses
the crack longer and longer
in the dress of the dancer

Ruth Caroline Mieger
9 points

honey moon
we share
the first melon

Eleanor Nickolay
13 points

Admission
in the suitcase the sand
from last summer

Eleanor Nickolay
10 points

on the deathbed -
Father asks about the duration
my business trip

Angelica Seithe
8 points

cycling tours
in the evening
felt anatomy

Boris Semrov
11 points

of clouds
in a dive
the swallow

Boris Semrov
7 points

moor ponds
can't find the reason
in your eyes

Helga Stania
12 points

desert wind
left behind in the dust
a cradle

Helga Stania
9 points

wind turbines
breath
a mammoth

Dietmar Tauchner
10 points

Square concert
a blackbird
sets the tone

Brigitte ten Brink
7 points

Face to Face
a sun second
with the lizard

Friedrich winemaker
13 points

what may depress her
I don't know, but I did
I noticed him
the second cube of sugar
in my wife's coffee

Tony Bohle
14 points

a faucet
to repair and
how to shave -
just two of the things
the father didn't teach me

Tony Bohle
13 points

ich erinnere mich
the first kiss
on her eyelashes
or fell snowflakes
to the warm earth?

Gerd Borner
9 points

"Cherry blossoms"
so hackneyed
from my pen
so fresh and fresh
out of your mouth

Frank Dietrich
9 points

found -
in the dusty carpet of stains
stripes for stripes
the verwob
my summer children's dress…

Ruth Guggenmoos-Walter
11 points

Hard to recognize
my childhood home
in the lilac scent
I carry the memories
out to the village

Ramona Left
11 points