Read • Contests • Groups • Learn • Forums • Store • Help
 

Dust Off Those Old Haiku (Traditional 5-7-5)

Send me every Traditional (5-7-5) Haiku that you have ever written.

If you write Non-Traditional Haiku, enter my other contest.
http://allpoetry.com/contest/show/2380424


I will comment on every entry submitted.

Contest is Over

  • Contest was judged on December 15, 2007
  • Rewards: Gold: 300, Silver: 75, Bronze: 50, Honorable mention: 2 people
  • Final notes:
    I would once again like to thank everyone that entered this contest. This was a very hard contest to judge. Please remember that the winners are only one person's idea of who should have won this contest.

    The following is the criteria that I used to do the judging:

    Haiku are and must be brief. Avoid adverbs (words describing the verb or action) and adjectives (words describing the noun or things). Use modifiers only to make your haiku images more exact and precise. Let us know if that gate is a garden gate, a prison gate or a swinging gate. Many adverbs and adjectives imply judgment (beautiful, graceful, ugly) so by avoiding them, and more importantly -- your own opinion, the haiku is left with images of things just as they are.

    By being concrete -- using only images of things we can see, smell, taste, touch or feel -- the haiku writer avoids those traps of Western poetry: abstract ideas such as love, hate, sadness, desire, honor, glory, of which we have had enough. Haiku demands you use your bodily senses instead of your intellect. Forget what you have been taught; write of what you experience with your body. Check your haiku. See if you can draw a picture (at least in your mind) as result of reading each line. If you have a line -- "so that it was there" -- you can be sure it is one to drop or rewrite.

    http://www.ahapoetry.com/haidefjr.htm


    Most haiku have no titles, and metaphors and similes are commonly avoided.

    http://www.hsa-haiku.org/archives/HSA_Definitions_2004.html


    The most important characteristic of haiku is how it conveys, through implication and suggestion, a moment of keen perception and perhaps insight into nature or human nature. Haiku does not state this insight, however, but implies it. In the last hundred years--in Japanese and English-language haiku--implication has been achieved most successfully through the use of objective imagery. This means you avoid words that interpret what you experience, such as saying something is "beautiful" or "mysterious," and stick to words that objectively convey the facts of what you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. Instead of writing about your reactions to stimuli, in a good haiku you write about those things that cause your reactions. This way your readers can experience the same feelings you felt, without your having to explain them.

    On a practical note, haiku never have titles, almost never rhyme, and seldom use overt metaphor and simile. The reasoning for this is that these devices often make the reader more aware of the words than their meaning.

    Avoid titles and rhyme (haiku virtually never have either) as well as metaphor, simile, and most other rhetorical devices (they are often too abstract or detours around the directness exhibited in most good haiku).


    http://www.haikuworld.org/begin/mdwelch.apr2003.html

Contest Winners

  1. A New Day
    by mommyof2 4 lines, 5 comments, on Aug 15 12:02 PM 2007. In Haiku
    Gold trophy winner
    • Commented on by judge. Prewrite [remove]
  2. Geisha
    Porcelin heartbeat
    emotionless little doll
    by Tamera 2 lines, 8 comments, on Sep 10 2:02 PM 2007
    Silver trophy winner
    • Commented on by judge. Prewrite [remove]
  3. Error: Unable to find finalist item 3517246, it seems to have been deleted :( [remove]
  4. HM - Ice Ballerina - Haiku (5-7-5)
    x 1
    by RedwingSpirit 0 lines, on Mar 15 10:46 PM 2008
    Honorable mention
    • Commented on by judge. Prewrite [remove]

Entries [57]

1 - 57 of 57

Add a comment

    : Comment:

Comments

1 - 6 of 6

  • sheltered
    December 1, 2007
    Edit | Reply
    I love Haiku contests.
    Thanks!

  • sheltered
    December 2, 2007
    Edit | Reply
    This ain't even worth entering though really. It's like buying a 6/49 tickit. There's so many great Haiku's out there. Good luck judgeing this one man.


  • just mercedes gold member
    December 12, 2007
    Edit | Reply
    I have dozens more - do you really want them all?


    • Pollycheck
      December 12, 2007
      Edit | Reply

      deedeewp

      You can enter as many as you want. The more the merrier.


  • Gigglegasm gold member
    December 14, 2007
    Edit | Reply
    Thank you for the Haiku contest! I don't find many of those around!


  • mommyof2
    December 15, 2007
    Edit | Reply

    Dear Pollycheck,

    Wow!! Thank you kindly for awarding me the gold, I'm truly honored. Congrats to all of the winners!
    -mommy

1 - 6 of 6