A total of 200 haiku from 75 authors and 57 tanka from 24 authors were submitted for this selection. The closing date for entries was July 15, 2023. 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Can be submitted only previously unpublished texts (also applies to publications on blogs, forums, including the forums on HI HAIKU, social media and workshops etc.).

No simultaneous submissions please!

Please Haiku / Tanka be sure collected in one operation Enter HALLO HAIKU yourself in the online form on the DHG website: https://haiku.de/haiku-und-tanka-wahl-einreichen/

Otherwise by e-mail to: wahlen@sommergras.de

The next deadline for the Haiku / Tanka selection is the 15. October 2023.

Each participant can take up to six Texts - three Haiku and three Tanka - submit.

With the submission, the author agrees to a possible publication in the DHG-Haiku-Agenda, on http://www.zugetextet.com as well as a possible presentation on the website of the Haiku International Association.

Haiku selection from HTA

The jury consisted of Horst-Oliver Buchholz, Birgt Heid and Deborah Karl-Brandt. The members of the selection group did not submit their own texts.

All selected texts - 57 haiku by 40 authors - are published in alphabetical order of the author's name. There are max. two haiku recorded per author.

"A haiku that particularly appeals to me" - under this motto, each jury member has the opportunity to select up to three texts (still anonymous), present them here and comment on them. This time six haiku were selected.

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.

Peter Rudolf

A haiku that particularly appeals to me

Foggy morning
still cool in the kiln
Chiemsee blue plates

Bernadette Duncan

Late autumn is certainly a good time of year to make pottery or engage in other creative work, as most of it is domestic in nature. In this haiku, plates were potted, glazed and fired for oneself or for other people. Practical household items that are also associated with the flair of the individual handicraft and the special charm of the optical design and the use of which offers far more pleasure than neutral white mass-produced goods. But not only that: Plates have to do with our food, which we like to take care of, which satisfactorily fills us up and keeps us alive.

The burning process is complete. The word "still" indicates that other pieces of tableware were already being completed and the plates might have been the last pieces in line.

The author plays with temperature contrasts so that I feel a little hot and cold, as if I were stepping out of a cool lake in the hot summer.

The color name of the pottery is unusual because the color of the Chiemsee, like many lakes in the foothills of the Alps, varies between deep turquoise blue and various shades of gray depending on the weather and the conditions of the subsoil, so the color cannot be precisely determined. Perhaps the color of the plates is a light turquoise, or blue areas were even combined with gray streaks. But in the word itself I can feel the peculiarity of the glaze that the plates wear. The idea of ​​Lake Chiemsee, the vastness, the free time spent happily there, as well as the sporting and social opportunities, jumped out at me immediately. The idea that you want to make the foggy gray autumn more bearable with the fresh colors of the lake and the memories of your plates melted into the glaze is immediately obvious. In addition, because the foggy morning is associated with November and insofar as winter will last a long time. Plenty of time to enjoy the beautiful plates. There is also a lot of time to think about how one's own well-being can be increased in gray phases of life so that it can also benefit others, for example me in this haiku.

Selected and commented by Birgit Heid

Mild night
Finally silent
the cicadas

Gabriele Hartman

A classic, well done haiku. Everything is said in six words with twelve syllables, even the cicadas are silent now. Why is this haiku so appealing to me?

It is divided into fragment and phrase, with the fragment opening the window into the haiku, which creates the mood (warm night). The image of summer arises before my eyes, even if “warm night” is not Kigo. Traditionally, the kigo is usually placed in the first line, the first verse, to introduce the reader to the mood and setting of the haiku.

If one were to speak of a kigo in the case of "lukewarm night", then it could only be regarded as a weak kigo.

The phrase, on the other hand, ends with a kigo, a strong kigo (cicadas), which represents mid and late summer. The haiku is an enigma, to grasp its meaning we must read to the end, to the kigo.

In the end they, too, fall silent, the cicadas. It's not her time anymore. A change of season is just around the corner, a transformation is taking place (in the silence of the cicadas). That's the way of the world. Everything is subject to change. And even if we still sit sociable and in a good mood on the terrace or our balconies with friends and family on warm nights, these days will also pass. So the haiku gently admonishes us to enjoy these easy, good days. NOW!

Selected and commented on by Deborah Karl-Brandt

Stumbling Stones
I shoulder
my heritage

Gabriele Hartman

You can find them everywhere in my city too: stumbling blocks. Where Jewish life used to be at home. As part of my city. Not much has remained: a destroyed mikveh on the banks of the Rhine, stumbling blocks and stumbling blocks where students who sympathized with the Nazis burned books in 1933.

This Senryu, which consists of only five well-chosen words, does not absolve the reader of his responsibility. Written in the first person, it says "my heritage". For centuries, Jewish culture was part of this culture, helped shape this culture and is therefore also my cultural heritage.

Today one can wonder how big it is. More than seventy years after the Holocaust, Jewish life in Germany is still there, but hardly visible. A difficult legacy that the reader must accept. It's hard to bear: looking, remembering, but it means an act of solidarity. It's about the question of what humanity is, what the individual is willing to bear, whether the lyrical self and the reader are ready to take a stand and oppose barbarism, even if the path may be rocky.

The lyrical self has made this choice because it is actively shouldering its legacy.

Selected and commented on by Deborah Karl-Brandt

misdialed
in his voice
something like home

Michaela Kiock

This haiku immediately reminded me of my son as a toddler, who, fascinated by the technical possibilities of the telephone, dialed numbers at random and enthusiastically parroted the usual announcement as "This Mumba is not connected". But occasionally there were other people on the line. His happily asked "Uncle Andi?" signaled to me that he had gotten a valid number. I explained to him that it was another man who had spoken in a similar voice to the suspect.

Linking new experiences to familiar ones is the fundamental learning experience young children have to make sense of the world. But adults also use so-called scripts in everyday life, i.e. conclusions from previous experiences, without which one could not move quickly and safely through the world. Unusual occurrences or locations can be classified quickly. Unfamiliar things become familiar to you by making a series of comparisons in the subconscious until you are reasonably sure. You might also ask to clear up any remaining doubts.

Whether these assumptions are characterized by openness or by prejudice certainly depends on your own experiences and personal nature. However, there are few doubts about the present haiku, because the word "home" is generally evaluated positively.

How wonderful it is to hear the familiar dialect or timbre of speech that reminds one of one's former home. Especially when the experience comes as a surprise, such as a chance encounter or an incorrectly dialed telephone number. In a moment you are reminded of your own life in the region of origin. To parents and friends, youth, training or studies, first love, the countryside, towns and villages. All the familiar. If I meet a stranger who speaks my native dialect, I always start a short, cheerful conversation with them. Sometimes it turns out that you lived nearby or that there are mutual acquaintances. That's when the circle of life closes, the biography is rounded off, that's my feeling. A homely sound is like returning home for a short time.

Selected and commented by Birgit Heid

misdialed
in his voice
something like home

Michaela Kiock

An unfortunate situation. The phone rings, you rush over and pick up the receiver expectantly. But no confidant comes forward, not a friend, but... a stranger: “mis-selected”. This is disappointing, at first. But suddenly there is a twist, in the stranger's voice something familiar is surprisingly perceived, "something like home" sounds. Distance turns into closeness, disappointment turns into interest, probably closer listening, attention, perhaps a short conversation develops, a getting to know each other. This is a successful open composition in a small space and is quite good in itself. But there is something added that gives the three lines a little more depth, namely the restrictive, relativizing “something” in line three, which indicates: the distance is not completely overcome, something foreign, something distancing, remains. This haiku thus measures the space between closeness and distance, between strangeness and familiarity. The unit of measurement is language! Language as the essential element for “something like home”, for a sense of home, perhaps even a place of longing. In these just twelve syllables we find a high level of content enrichment that combines intellectual depth with a laconic language. The fact that there is a little alliteration in lines one and three adds a little highlight to the haiku. Wonderful.

Selected and commented by Horst-Oliver Buchholz

weathered crossroads
like nothing
gewesen

Eva Limbach

I had to read the haiku a few times before I understood it. Under "as if nothing had happened" I first imagined an event among people. A conflict or a love affair, something that connected two or more people, but this connection no longer seems to reach into the present. There is no memory of the other person recognizing that there was something there. But I could not establish any connection with the crossroads. At best, the association that the paths that may cross at the crossroads themselves lead to the fact that one has parted and met again. But the "as if nothing had happened" gives additional information that I could not assign.

The "weathered" led me further. The crossroads are gradually disappearing. It spontaneously made sense to me that the “as if nothing / had happened” means religion itself. When the cross has completely disintegrated, there will be nothing left at this point to remind of the religious intentions of the people who put it there. Perhaps to thank God for a rich harvest or to commemorate someone who died here. Maybe it was a boundary sign or the location was a sacred place. As if the practice of religion had not existed.

It remains open whether the parallel is evaluated positively or negatively. This openness is great, because every reader and every recipient will find themselves in the haiku to a certain extent, and will feel confirmed in their own position. What will happen then, one might ask, when the wayside cross has been broken or when Christianity has become meaningless? Is this an anxious or perhaps a liberating question?

After all, it is about the most important philosophical considerations in life. In which direction is my compass needle pointing? Who is my role model? Which rules do I recognize as useful for me and the community? What happens after death? These big questions, whether God and the Bible or the philosophical writings from antiquity to today serve as orientation in this world as well as in relation to a possible afterlife, these fundamental questions are reflected in this haiku.

Selected and commented by Birgit Heid

After the rain
the invasion of snails
to the salad 

Evelyn Schmidt

At first glance a simple, humorous summer haiku. The phrase and fragment divide the poem into two parts. In the first line a celestial phenomenon, the other two then describe the very earthbound consequences. Suddenly there they are, the molluscs that are unpopular with hobby gardeners, greedily eating fresh garden greens.

I see a horde of red, brown, black, or black and yellow striped slugs, hear the sound of their rasping tongues as they shred the usurped food. an invasion.

The rain is too little, the summers too hot. Threatened with dehydration, exposed to malnutrition, the snails have to take what they can get. Take every opportunity, because otherwise they are threatened with death. Climate victims!

Bruce Ross wrote that the haiku essentially establishes the relationship between the individual case and the universal. For me, this haiku contains a reminder to preserve the basis of life on this earth for humanity and all living beings.

Selected and commented on by Deborah Karl-Brandt

The selection

Farewell
in the fading light
his shadow

Christa Beau

stop
get off the train
odors

Christa Beau

Equal Pay Day
a bee pokes and pokes
against the window

Tony Bohle

The Buddha
smiles on the tombstone
from deep

Heiner Brueckner

the Braille
of the petals –
most delicate lifts

Stefanie Bucifal

in the next life
To be a swallow and to return
for one summer

Stefanie Bucifal

it kills gently
your silence after
confession of love

Michael Deisenrieder

The conversation falls silent:
A huge full moon floats
above the roofs.

Reinhard Dellbrugge

first gray
a part of your hair
is moonlight

Frank Dietrich

nach and nach
we're running out of topics
last stars

Frank Dietrich

burning smell
the refugees in the house
pray for peace

Hildegard Dohrendorf

thunderstorms sultriness
take the sparrows
a sand bath

Hildegard Dohrendorf

Foggy morning
still cool in the kiln
Chiemsee blue plates

Bernadette Duncan

end of childhood
I introduce myself
in front of mother

Hubert Felser

Pluck blackberries –
the pilgrim turns his face
into the morning light.

Volker Friebel

Flying swans…
Why does this sky bear
not me.

Volker Friebel

Old school atlas
many countries
bear false names

Dieter Gebell

lovemaking
der Mond
in her eyes

Dieter Gebell

a while yet
be together
hand in hand

Gregor Graf

the staircase
slight beer smell
dad is here

Wolfgang founder

I'm pregnant
scurries across his face
a shadow

Wolfgang founder

spring breeze –
her quiet song
at the garden gate

Claus Hansson

wild Rose
drift once more
in the evening wind

Claus Hansson

balmy night
finally be silent
the cicadas

Gabriele Hartman

Stumbling Stones
I shoulder
my heritage

Gabriele Hartman

dry summer –
he waters the weeds along the way
the foolish old man

Torsten Hesse

condolence visit
she speaks of high ones
price losses

Michaela Kiock

misdialed
in his voice
something like home

Michaela Kiock

On the prowl
with honor
the grass grow

Petra Klingl

you too
you're all white now
dandelion

Gerard Krebs

under the mosquito net
wir lernen
to live with the war

Eva Limbach

weathered crossroads
like nothing
gewesen

Eva Limbach

blue hydrangea –
on the bench next to her
the silence takes place

Ramona Left

yoga class
alone with the unsaid

Ramona Left

contemplating the river
an age: life drives
towards the sea

Werner Martini

the neighbor on the train
I tell myself
his story

Ingrid Meinerts

dog days
in the ice cream cones
the summer is melting

Ingrid Meinerts

crane calls
the sandals
store in the closet

Ruth Caroline Mieger

November gray
again they argue
about visiting rights

Ruth Caroline Mieger

Night workers
in a puddle
it will be day

Eleanor Nickolay

mourning
I go into custody
the oak

Eleanor Nickolay

Leather shoes on the lake shore
a letter
"For Anna"

Heike Pfingsten-Kleefeld

the laughter in your throat
gone too far
the puppet of the ventriloquist

Wolfgang Roedig

newspaper message
WORLD POETRY DAY
but not a poem

Rita Rosen

breaths
between the waves
the silence of the sea

Frank Sauer

inner quarrel –
rooted in this house
the climbing roses

Birgit Schaldach Helmlechner

in the flat bowl three irises - yellow stillness

Angela Smith

the market woman screams
the seagull doesn't leave
out of line

Helga Schulz Blank

Early fog
from the grey
calls a cuckoo

Helga Schulz Blank

on my way
the sun flashes
in a shard

Marie Luise Schulze Frenking

more frequently
in the morning in the mirror
my mother

Marie Luise Schulze Frenking

your fine veins
Under parchment skin
Wilting tulips

Monica Seidel

sunlit window –
the rare inclination
to open myself wide

Angelica Seithe

sleepless - I'm listening
the many facets
the silent one

Brigitte ten Brink

evening sun
the gate to the cemetery
just ajar

Jan Wake

back in the forest
know the nettles
me yet

Stefanie Wichert

thermals
a paraglider follows
the buzzard

Friedrich winemaker

HTA tanka selection

Silvia Kempen and Martin Thomas selected 6 tankas from 4 authors.

"A tanka that particularly appeals to me" - this time a tanka is presented and commented on.

A tanka that particularly appeals to me

between two bites
you ask for salt and pepper
without seeing
that I have the little black dress
and wear the pearls today

Gabriele Hartman

The banality of asking for salt and pepper between two bites contrasts with the elegance of the little black dress and pearls. A successful contrast.

According to psychology, people who wear black tend to be serious, they want to be respected. In addition, wearing the “little black dress” comes with an expectation. A meal well prepared with care, probably with a festively set table, perhaps for a specific occasion. The pearls could have been a gift from the partner.

But the partner appreciates neither the food nor the woman's outfit. He asks for salt and pepper and "between two bites", so as if by the way. Maybe he even reads the daily newspaper because he doesn't even see it.

A single disappointment for the woman. Not only is it not respected, it is not even properly recognized. So it almost fits again that the little black dress probably once emerged from mourning clothes. This man's behavior is just sad.

Selected and commented on by Silvia Kempen.

 The selection

the level drops
Ruins rise
out of the mud
as if the earth had
a word of power spoken

Frank Dietrich

in the museum
the quiet grace
of the fossils
I submit
in my animal fate

Frank Dietrich

under junk
my old teddy – you roll
with the eyes
when I grant him asylum
in your half of the bed

Gabriele Hartman

between two bites
you ask for salt and pepper
without seeing
that I have the little black dress
and wear the pearls today

Gabriele Hartman

This evening
dispute eagerly
the frogs in the pond.
trusting your advice
I gently fall asleep.

Torsten Hesse

the faint noise
of the wind in the old
cemetery trees
it's as if they were telling a story
stories there

Brigitte ten Brink

Special contribution by René Possél

misdialed
in his voice
something like home

Michaela Kiock

I like haiku that aren't fully self-explanatory or whose meaning is left open-ended and ambiguous—like this one.

The opening word describes a situation that everyone knows: "misdialled". Someone calls – and has obviously made the wrong choice. It's definitely a man – “in its agree" it says. I imagine that you successively knew the haiku, only from speaking it or reading it aloud, without already knowing the third line...

Then there would be tension after the second one. What's in the voice of that caller who dialed the wrong number? “in his voice / something like home”. Does this mean that the stranger's voice has a tongue, a dialect that reminds me of my homeland, or perhaps a warmth, another peculiarity that evokes feelings of home?

The word "home" as the last word stands here in contrast to the first word "verwahlt". The strange and the familiar come together so unexpectedly. The act of misdialing itself brings about the punchline; it is in a sense chance that writes the haiku. And who knows what "something like home" means...