A total of 230 haiku from 83 authors and 37 tanka from 20 authors were submitted for this selection. The deadline for entries was July 15, 2019. These texts were anonymized by me 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Can be submitted only previously unpublished texts (also applies to publications on blogs, forums, social media and workshops etc.).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 October 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 Claus Hansson, Eva Limbach and Birgit Wendling. The members of the selection group did not submit their own texts.

All selected texts - 38 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

digital detox -
my fingers
enjoy the silence

Martin Thomas

This haiku immediately appealed to me in the large number of short poems submitted and, after careful evaluation, has become my favorite in the present selection.

The term “digital detox” literally catches my eye and pulls me into the haiku. What an exciting topic is in the starting line alone!

Everyone is certainly aware of detox diets that are supposed to rid the body of pollutants that it has ingested over time via the environment and nutrition. Detoxification and purification take place over several days or weeks and can include a special diet, body treatments and physical exercises.

With "digital detox" or "digital detoxification", people should avoid using electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets or the PC for a certain period of time. The aim is to become aware of the constant networking and accessibility and to withdraw from it for a limited period of time. The goal is to reduce stress and become more aware of the real world.

How might a person feel who has recognized their internet addiction and smartphone addiction and wants to evade them for a certain time?

The following haiku lines answer this question for me. First there are "my fingers"; Fingers as part of the body stand still as little as the restless mind. As the mind constantly deals with any thoughts, the fingers feel, grip and feel non-stop. How do fingers feel who have been robbed of their previous activity of entering data into digital devices? Do they tingle? Are you looking for a stop or job elsewhere? Presumably, humans do not really know what to do with themselves and their hands in the initial phase of detoxification.

However, at some point the fingers come to rest with progressive detoxification or more conscious awareness. In haiku, however, there is no question of calm, but of silence, as it means "enjoy the silence". For me, silence is more than rest. For me, the fingers here express the deeply felt silence in the mind. The silence becomes palpable. The mind enjoys the undisturbed silence after it has released itself from the constant availability of the digital media.

For me, that's not all in Haiku. It continues in the reverberation and further images open up in my mind's eye. Modern people not only suffer from the pace of increasing digitalization, but certainly also from other everyday disorders, stresses and addictions of all kinds, sometimes even alienation from nature. Just as the "digital detox" is only suitable against Internet addiction or smartphone addiction if conscious withdrawal is repeatedly incorporated into everyday life, modern people must also recognize other sources of interference, sometimes renounce them and take other paths.

Using a modern theme, the haiku shows me very well how important it is to indulge in short, calm periods of time so that body and mind can find harmony and stillness. The next time there is a power failure, nothing may stand in the way of enjoyment.

Selected and commented by Claus Hansson.

Fit song
she forgets
that she can't sing

Martin Berner

In one of our evaluation rounds, the question arose: "What is a Fit song?"

Before I started writing haiku a few years ago, I would surely have asked the same question. But when I started writing, I began to hear, look and name differently.

It took me a whole summer to identify a specific bird call. It was the chaffinch, and today I'm happy every time because I know who sings there.

Well, the Fitis is a leaf singer, closely related to the Zilpzalp, and of course I listened to his singing. It is very similar to that of chaffinch, and in the future I will probably be able to distinguish between the two.

Maybe "her" was like that?

And she starts singing with sheer joy ... although she apparently can't.

And that is also conveyed to me by the many i-sounds: "With what shrill voice she sings her song ..."

A haiku not only for smiling and literally a "funny verse".

Selected and commented by Eva Limbach.

The selection

trembling loudly
unites the blackbirds -
a cat!

Karen Baumgarten

in the mirror
the faces of the sisters
in my

Christa Beau

Fit song
she forgets
that she can't sing

Martin Berner

on our bridge
my look down
in flowing sky

Horst Oliver Buchholz

Demolished house.
I ever knew
how it looked

Reinhard Dellbrugge

even in my pond
circles
by Bashōs frog

Susanne Effert-Hartmann

Antiquarian
the smell
currently

Hubert Felser

jump over
and again
my shadow

Hubert Felser

Video conference,
the star at the window
puffs up

Taiki Haijin

On the schoolyard
for the last piece of bread
brawled ravens

Erika Hanning

Crescent moon
we lick
our wounds

Gabriele Hartman

summer night
we hesitate before the last one
moult

Gabriele Hartman

Stony way home
in my backpack
a Gebet

Birgit Heid

home
in the courtyard entrance
dandelions grow

Anne Holtz

far out alone
my shadow
on the ocean floor

Anne Holtz

feelings
deadwood
In the evening light

Angelica Holweger

all the thoughts
reflect in the water
forget Me Not

Angelica Holweger

Newly in love -
how he rocks, crunches and squeaks
the old Eibsee barge.

Manfred Karlinger

In the cafe -
Die stille
above the displays

Deborah Karl Brandt

They meet again
at the salad bar -
Hain banded snails

Deborah Karl Brandt

tree of life
for a while
lean

Angelica Knetsch

Mill wheel -
the latest version
her divorce

Gerard Krebs

Even after decades
the smell of cigars
in grandpa's desk

Reinhard Lehmitz

cool summer evening
yet
the Nightingale

Ramona Left

unexpectedly ...
there is this confidentiality again
tandaradei

Ramona Left

Mobile home
the shell collection
the previous tenant

Eleanor Nickolay

dream trip
in the luggage
their conflicts

Eleanor Nickolay

bed lektüre
after the psychological thriller
breathing the cat

Sonja Raab

stories of war
smiles in the showcase
a buddha

Sonja Raab

in the old house
under the spatula
discovered childhood

Evelyn Schmidt

after the holiday
the spider lives now
in my chair

Evelyn Schmidt

my dog ​​warms
her ice cold hands
and the memory

Helga Schulz Blank

curian spit
the curved line
the moonrise

Helga Stania

Mediterranean Summer -
the saving hands
tied up

Martin Thomas

digital detox -
my fingers
enjoy the silence

Martin Thomas

schietwetter
protested on the beach
yellow Jackets

Friedrich winemaker

pent silence
in front of the mill weir
Dragonfly dance

Klaus-Dieter Wirth

oppressive sultry
a stray shakes
the pond from the fur

Klaus-Dieter Wirth

Special contribution by René Possél

René Possél chose a haiku from all anonymized submissions that particularly appeals to him.

in the cafe -
Die stille
above the displays

Deborah Karl Brandt

It doesn't get scarce! Four words in the first two lines simultaneously determine the setting and an unusual situation for the (well-built) haiku.

The café (actually orthographically incorrect) is the place for relaxed coffee drinking, for meeting and entertaining a wide variety of people. It is unusual for there to be silence.

The tension of this observation or determination is released in the last line by a note. It's about a "modern" habit of today's café visitors.

In fact, one sees more and more people sitting in a café, whose person opposite is a computer (“display” stands here as “pars pro toto” for the portable computer, the laptop).

The silence of the individual's preoccupation with what he sees on his "display" is in contrast to the place of conversation and exchange that the café wants / should be - or should / should be better ?!

At this point you could add a long digression to the cultural history of the café - or the coffee house, as it is called in Austria, especially Vienna. Alfred Polgar (1873-1955), who I am reading, wrote an enlightening sentence. It applies to café visitors - then and now:

"There are people in the coffee house who want to be alone but need company. " It couldn't be more concise and more accurate!

Selected and commented by René Possél

HTA tanka selection

At the general meeting in Traben-Trarbach in May 2019, Tony Böhle was elected to the board. He then made his position on the Tanka jury available. Peter Rudolf has agreed to do this.

Brief introduction by Peter Rudolf
by Silvia Kempen

I met Peter Rudolf at the general meeting of the German Haiku Society in Wiesbaden in May 2015.

He was born in 1960. In 1981, he had his first contact with Japanese art through a course evening at the Museum of Design in Zurich on the topic: Japanese forms in posters during the Art Nouveau period in Paris and Zurich.

Peter discovered haiku as a reading in the late 80s, and then in spring 1994, on a holiday on Ireland's west coast, wrote his first haiku.

Around 2005, he dealt with Tanka for the first time by reading the book "Cherry Blossoms and Maple Leaves" by Walter Exner and then reading the book "There would be no cherry blossoms - Tanka from 1.300 years". Then followed the first own tanka.

In 2014 Peter became a DHG member and in 2017 he was elected to the board at the general meeting in Winsen (Aller).

Last but not least, a tanka by Peter Rudolf:

into the white
the higher it goes the more
the snow curly
with a back today
but once ... then without

Silvia Kempen and Peter Rudolf selected five tanka.

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

A tanka that particularly appeals to me

lonely wrong
an ant
on my table
searches in the light of the moon
the lost road ...

Ruth Guggenmos-Walter

For me, this is a text about searching and erring people. At first there is no lyrical self in it. Instead, the ant invites the reader to be there. "Lonely": Who does not feel this at some point in his life? - "an ant is wrong": Who does not know this look back with the fateful content: "I worked there - and for what?"

The author pairs the ant with the madman - a classic link (juxtaposition). In our thinking, the ant goes hand in hand with the idea of ​​being hard-working. I consider it reasonable to be able to understand the ant paired with the madman as a reference to the review referred to above. The connection seems all the more successful since humans usually experience the ant appearing in a larger association, be it as an anthill in nature during a hike or be it as an ant road that penetrates the house. In this respect, the link between the "hardworking social being - loneliness" belongs.

"On my table": Here, exactly in the middle of the five-line text, the lyrical ego appears. First of all, the table offers itself as a symbol for the world of one person. This is true on the assumption that the reader identifies with the ant. The author makes the statement "my table" against the equation. This discreet introduction of the lyrical self creates a distance between the ant and the reader. Significantly, it is this point that gives the tanka something personal (in a homeopathic dose) and warmth.

"In the shine of the moon" is not in bright, direct sunlight. With the moon in the fourth line, the text leaves Earth. The fifth line finally leads beyond the moon and indicates with the "street" those stars that form the Milky Way.

With the expression "lost road", the poet brings the drama of being human again into the memory of the reader. The tanka begins with the feeling of loneliness, an archetypal human feeling, leads to the moon and sky and back to the “lost road” via the ant, which is recognized as hardworking and extremely social. - The fact that even without this broad arc, which I have described here, the text is only coherent as "an ant story" is due to the word "street": the lonely ant has lost its social environment; now she is trying to find her companions in the ant road.

In addition, this tanka impresses me with its choice of words and modest style, as well as with its classic shape. It does not mean the number of syllables. But that an independent haiku of the first three lines becomes a tanka, without textual breaks and stumbling blocks.

Selected and commented by Peter Rudolf.

The selection

It is not so
that you are ugly
but you can't
sleep in my bed
little bug.

Frank Dietrich

Earth to earth
ashes to Ashes
dust to dust
snow falls
in our silence

Frank Dietrich

lonely wrong
an ant
on my table
searches in the light of the moon
the lost road ...

Ruth Guggenmos-Walter

I stumbled
- as a child - so I fell
short and light
today I still stumble
but today I fall completely

Gabriele Hartman

my husband and the wine -
he swings the glass towards the light
checks the color
sniffs, tastes, smacks and nods
and offers me - his lips

Gabriele Hartman