Annual Selection 2013: Composing a delectable haiku masterpiece
Selected and commented on by Isamu Hashimoto
With respect, I would like to point out four very important factors in composing haiku in English. First is the "punch line." The last line or the final word is supposed to serve as a stopper or "bung" in the haiku — similar to the humorous punch lines seen in party jokes, on a superficial level. However, in haiku, the punch line is very different from that of simple jokes. Haiku must have resonance, connecting with readers' imaginations. Think about Basho's haiku (1694-1944): amusing and / gradually saddening / cormorant fishing boat (tr. by IH). The last line in haiku can be interchanged.
Secondly, a "kigo," or seasonal reference, is desirable. It makes the haiku deeper, penetrating further into human life or the entity of things. Every country has its own seasons. Haiku poets should use them in their own way.
Thirdly, abbreviations: "The shorter the better" indeed applies to haiku in English.
Fourth is the simple sketch. The composer must depict the tip of the iceberg, while implying a vast, submerged underworld.
On every haiku published here in 2013 (about 300 pieces), I provided a comment. Please enjoy them, and don't be angry, gentlewomen and gentlemen, if yours is not highly respected!
Annual Selection: 2013
a new pair
regular fit, denim blue, zip front...
downtown strolling
— Romano Zeraschi (Parma, Italy)
Comment:** Fresh parallels for casual clothes, depicting a merry walk through the arcade on New Year's Day. I like the simple fit of this haiku, too.
cleared woodland
a little pond reflects
the first snow
— Ramona Linke (Beesenstedt, Germany)
Comment:* A few beautiful words in one haiku.
at the top
Sisyphus raises his gaze
shooting star
— Irena Szewczyk (Warsaw, Poland)
Comment:** We sometimes rush through difficult work before finding something peaceful or soothing like "Sisyphus." "Sisyphus raises" — a reference to a huge rock being carried by the king of Corinth, Sisyphus — is a very good choice of words.
deep autumn night...
into the dark skylight
silent lightning
— Bruce Ross (Bangor, ME, USA)
Comment:** The third line is effective in the darkness of autumn. The lightning is especially beautiful against the dark skyline with no thunder.
cross country race
runners melt past
the setting sun
— William Hart (Montrose, CA, USA)
Comment:* I can't find another substitute for "melt past." Surely it isn't interchangeable.
tennis ball
approaching fast
in Shih-Tzu's mouth
— Jane King (Pitlochry, Scotland)
Comment:* The ball is well acquainted with this kind of Chinese short-legged dog.
foggy sea...
the cargo vessel
carrying the fog
— Kohjin Sakamoto (Kyoto, Japan)
Comment:* I know another good "carrying" haiku: long after dark / the fishing boat returns / carrying moonlight / — H. F. Noyes
taking the shade
away
departing train
— Katherine Samuelowicz (Chapel Hill, Australia)
Comment: ** Dear Katherine, who was about to part here? Sorrowfully, I'm now at the age where I have no one to say "sayonara" to — I just go places alone.
the bluish-gray sky
that fell down last night
white, so white
— Djurdja Vukelic Rozic (Ivanic Grad, Croatia)
Comment:* Oh, snow fell last night. Haijin know better.
"Beyond words..." he says
and goes on trimming
the roses
— jerry ball (Walnut Creek, CA, USA)
Comment:* Workmen say few words, and Jerry selects "the roses" as an objective correlative beyond words. The author's juxtaposition here is good.
Thames solitude
the cyclist's blouse
rippling
— David Jacobs (London, UK)
Comment:** If "solitude" were deleted, that is, just "Thames" in the first line, this haiku would be great! In haiku, you do not express your feelings directly (solitude), but through objects (Thames).
washing
sandy's ruins—
high tide
— Maria Santomauro (Commack, NY, USA)
Comment:* It would be much better to move the last line to the top. "High tide" in the last line is a logical choice. But reasonable logic, no wonder, haiku abhors.
warning storm—
a sudden camera flash
catches my attention
— Jacek Margolak (Kielce, Poland)
Comment:** The third line is superb — as if we were in the midst of this scene.
a candle flickers
in a solitary hut...
a sentinel rose
— Keith A. Simmonds (Tunapuna, Trinidad & Tobago)
Comment: ** A beautiful 5-7-5 syllabic haiku. The sentinel must be a young, sensitive soldier.
distant galaxy
in the telescope
the refraction of time
— Rudi Pfaller (Remshalden, Germany)
Comment:** This is original. However, I wonder how time can refract in a telescope.
icy fog—
my dad's
ingrowing toenails
— Gesine Becker (Stralsund, Germany)
Comment:* In this minimal haiku, there are too many haiku materials: icy, fog, my, dad's, ingrowing, toenails — at least "fog" should be cut out: dad's / icy / ingrowing toenails /
winter solstice
snowy egrets knee deep
in the moon of his shadow
— Evgeny Ivanov (Moscow, Russia)
Comment:* It's an ordinary sketch, but we feel something new outside the windows of the subway express.
I have seen angels—
but this is something common
in a hospital
— Iulian Ciupitu (Bucharest, Romania)
Comment: ** A superb haiku. There is no fault in any way.
kite surfing
she jumps over
the setting sun
— Barbara A. Taylor (Nimbin, Australia)
Comment: ** A beautiful minimal haiku. The author has a natural haiku talent.
lonesome night...
the wind tells stories
never heard
— Heinz Schneemann (Berlin, Germany)
Comment: * The author must have heard a divine voice in the wind.
piano factory
icicles dripping
from the ceiling
— Gregory Hopkins (Weaver, AL, USA)
Comment: * Now I've got a dripping "re" sound around the PC desk.
snowy day
the windowpane's blue deepens
into darkness
— Dietmar Tauchner (Puchberg, Austria)
Comment: * The tricolor juxtaposition (white, blue, black) and the progress of a day.
wind shift—
fires burning
inside and out
— Michael Henry Lee (St. Augustine, FL, USA)
Comment: * We favorably appreciate the artifact in the third line. Suju Takano (1893-1976) dealt with the fireplace: firewood reversed / all over / fire / (tr. by IH).
Windows still open.
In the library's garden
someone's raking leaves.
— Horst Ludwig (St. Peter, MN, USA)
Comment: * Still and quiet in the library.
homeless
sleeping next to
OPEN HOUSE sign
— Raj K. Bose (Honolulu, HI, USA)
Comment: * Oh, really … it's not impossible.
wind blast
on the threshold
nothing but a leaf
— Diana Teneva (Haskovo, Bulgaria)
Comment: * Only one leaf selected to be there by Nature.
it all depends on
a dandelion seed
the color of frost
— Tyrone McDonald (Brooklyn, NY, USA)
Comment: ** I feel that the one-liner respects the Japanese way of writing haiku — vertically in the Japanese language on one line. This implies a transition in the seasons.
There
for the entire life
of a snowflake
— Patrick Sweeney (Misawa, Japan)
Comment: * Even a snowflake surely has an eternal moment. Tenko Kawasaki (1927-2009): tiny floating whites / in the early winter air / might have heart and mind / (tr. by IH).
mountain path...
rain drops drip from
a wooden sign post
— K. Ramesh (Chennai, India)
Comment: * I saw the wooden sign along the mountain path and the photo is now posted on the wall in front of my desk.
sixty years ago
a frog was cloned
only it failed to make a splash
— Helen Buckingham (Bristol, UK)
Comment: * Then … foreign pond / a frog jumps in / no sound /
climbing
shadow of my hand
reaching for better grip
— Mariusz Ogryzko (Bialystok, Poland)
Comment: * We have a Japanese version made by haijin and climber Nichio Okada (1932- ): gripping a rock / the back of my hand / dense fog rushes by / (tr. by IH).
sweet summer
frangipani carpets lead
to the hen house
— Barbara A. Taylor (Nimbin, Australia)
Comment: * The three words "sweet," "frangipani" and "hen" fall within a similar word group and are effective in adding a touch of harmony to the happy atmosphere.
in no rush
to be somewhere
falling snow
— Stephen A. Peters (Bellingham, WA, USA)
Comment: * Falling snow has another essential aspect.
scrutinizing seagulls,
bow cleaving fresh waves
to the open sea
— Romano Zeraschi (Parma, Italy)
Comment: * I can see the ocean clearly, lightly and vividly.
abandoned beach ball
floats toward the setting sun
year comes to an end
— Raj K. Bose (Honolulu, HI, USA)
Comment: * At last the ball succeeded in finding its purpose. This is a typical year-end ode.
Nothing between years...
only fireworks
and shoots
— Vasile Moldovan (Bucharest, Romania)
Comment: * We old timers think "only." However, young people should enjoy "only."
Dog chasing
the boy tumbling down
the wintry sky
— Rahadian Tanjung (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Comment: * The dog and the boy are vigorous even in winter.
pancake moon
today I would ask
mother
— Heike Stehr (Moers, Germany)
Comment: * A haiku depicting "one affecting the other." On seeing a pancake, the author remembers the face of her mother. Due to the circumstances, she was unable to ask her mother why …
The Beatles...
this frozen kitten too
needs more love
— Origa (Okemos, MI, USA)
Comment: * If you love somebody, make a donation.
crossing Abbey Road
and looking back on my youth—
I am sixty four
— Wilhelm Karud (Drevsjo, Norway)
Comment: * Sixty-four is really a lucky number. In Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea," the old man says: "Eighty five is a lucky number." By the way, I am now 72. That number is a very lucky number, too.
old cat alone
composed until the end
injection
— Garry Eaton (Port Moody, BC, Canada)
Comment: * Incidentally, I drew away my arm two times before a flu injection last year.
the ceasefire...
a pillar of cloud
around the moon
— Hana Nestieva (Jerusalem, Israel)
Comment: * War is the worst excuse of all. War bears war one after another.
winter tranquility in the river
Heron's eye sharper
than her beak
— Toshio Matsumoto (Osaka, Japan)
Comment: * A new type of comparison. The author's observational skills are superb.
plucking
the last red apple
now I feel the cold
— Rohini Gupta (Mumbai, India)
Comment: * The winter season has just set in.
war reporting...
my heart goes out to
mother's light slumber
— Ramona Linke (Beesenstedt, Germany)
Comment: * From the third line, I see that Ramona loves her mother very much. Everybody, be good to your parents.
snow-filled day
my adult daughter
reads to me
— Roberta Beary (Bethesda, MD, USA)
Comment: * Oh, what a cute young lady!
abandoned house
falling snow
fills the chimney
— Urszula Wielanowska (Kielce, Poland)
Comment: * "To err is human, to forgive divine." However, God's anger seems to be recurring this time in the form of a tsunami, or nuclear disaster or war.
bright winter's sky
waiting for the ailing child
to wake
— Andrea Kobayashi (Gunma, Japan)
Comment: * The first line is the will of nature. He will recover very soon.
waiting for the bus
in a snow-capped shelter...
roads invisible
— Keith A. Simmonds (Tunapuna, Trinidad & Tobago)
Comment: * The third line conjures up the next haiku in my mind: (tsuyushitodo musashinomichino hatemonaku) heavy dew road / infinite five-ring ordeals of Miyamoto Musashi / — Eiji Yoshikawa (1892-1962); translated by Isamu Hashimoto.
A red leaf
crossing the full moon
on the pond
— Yuji Hayashi (Fukuoka, Japan)
Comment: ** Excellent. The simplicity of good haiku tends to have an antecedent, I fear.
spring—
crosswalk signals
chirping
— Ed Bremson (Raleigh, NC, USA)
Comment: ** This is the victory of unexpectedness.
Snow stars—
a stairway to the vaults
of heaven.
— Beate Conrad (Waterford, MI, USA)
Comment: * The three "-s" sounds make us feel very cold. In haiku, the sound can be a very important factor, too.
falling snow
photos of the face
unmanned station
— Teiichi Suzuki (Kawachinagano, Osaka)
Comment: * I'm now sorrowfully imagining a poster of the missing in the unmanned railway station.
heavy snowfall
my web traffic
increases
— Andrea Cecon (Cividale del Friuli, Italy)
Comment: * And the road was blocked to traffic by the landslide.
winter moon
keeping all-night vigil...
insomnia
— natalia kuznetsova (Moscow, Russia)
Comment: * The punch line in haiku should not be a kind of joke. But the first two lines display the fundamental factors of haiku: amusing and / gradually saddening / cormorant fishing boat / — Basho (1644-94); tr. by IH.
the rain through the drains
a distant train...
Groundhog Day
— Helen Buckingham (Bristol, UK)
Comment: * The alliteration (rain, drain, train) is not an effective haiku technique, because it threatens to deviate from the focus of the theme.
The winter constellations
come to life
in the snow
— Ian Cody (PSC)
Comment: ** With the superlative third line, the haiku will expand with new, excellent constellations.
confessions...
everything I'd like to hear
snowflakes over water
— Goda V. Bendoraitiene (Klaipeda, Lithuania)
Comment: ** It's happening in some silent cathedral along the river. I once saw an invitation poster in front of a church in London: "A Priest or Sister is available for Confessions & Counseling." The last additional word takes people in agony into consideration.
nets down
under Scorpion's stars ...
fishing lights
— Romano Zeraschi (Parma, Italy)
Comment: * The last line is not so effective. You could create a better new line.
icy morning
the sparrow in the firehouse
is a loudmouth
— William Hart (Montrose, CA, USA)
Comment: * It's an interesting observation of the little creature.
withered tattoo...
from the window sill
the scent of snow
— Wolfgang Beutke (Barum, Germany)
Comment: * He is now behind bars waiting for release. Having spent a long time inside, his senses have become keen and fresh.
early thaw
where a snowman stood
my reflection
— Jacek Margolak (Kielce, Poland)
Comment: * He is standing a bit far from the melted remains of a snowman.
Wintry calm—
from the flag pole flappings
of gull wings
— Valeria Barouch (Geneva, Switzerland)
Comment: * It's natural in terms of meaning to start a new line with "flappings," but the author's opinion may be different.
On the Road
too late to be
Jack Kerouac
— David Jacobs (London, UK)
Comment: ** I'm sorrowful to say that I'm a bit late, too. Jack Kerouac (1922-69) was a leading writer of the Beat Generation. "On the Road" was published in 1957.
icy moon
i start talking
to a calla lily
— Simone K. Busch (Tokyo, Japan)
Comment: * This is a typical feminine haiku, and is beautifully composed.
Mid-winter break—
vultures gather on the roof
of old college building
— Priscilla H Lignori (Montgomery, NY, USA)
Comment: * A dreadful mid-winter scene in Montgomery, NY.
after radiotherapy—
through an icicle
sunrise
— Marek Kozubek (Zywiec, Poland)
Comment: ** This is where haiku lies. Haiku comes up through the use of images without any commentary from the author.
deep silence—
planets move around
without noise
— Pravat Kumar Padhy (Odisha, India)
Comment: * The author knows the mysteries of the universe through the aid of super hearing.
icy pavement
tonight no one will guess
I am drunk
— Artur Lewandowski (Sieradz, Poland)
Comment: * Everybody likes humorous Artur very much.
the smoke
from the incense stick
my fleeting life
— Abraham Freddy Ben-Arroyo (Haifa, Israel)
Comment: ** Excellent! No definite article in the first line would be powerful, perhaps.
folding over itself
the distance of water
the depth of water
— sara winteridge (Fordingbridge, England)
Comment: * Epitomizing the contents "of the sea, to the sea, in the sea."
filling the feeder—
storm
of sparrows' wings
— john mcdonald (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Comment: * This tall talk can be favorably acknowledged.
city park
a man empties the bins
of snow
— Zelyko Funda (Varazdin, Croatia)
Comment: * Yes, the garbage collector collected the snow, too.
icicles
I am also afraid
of heights
— Archie Carlos (Minneapolis, MN, USA)
Comment: * I'm also afraid of overhanging swords.
after the masquerade
gladly be back
to an empty house
— Urszula Wielanowska (Kielce, Poland)
Comment: * Basho once again: amusing / and gradually saddening / cormorant fishing boat /
midday nap
the humming of her
bronchospasms
— Ramona Linke (Beesenstedt, Germany)
Comment: ** With the effective first line, one aspect of human life spreads to touch our sympathies.
spring sunrise
the unfastened boat
slides offshore
— John Zheng (Itta Bena, MS, USA)
Comment: * How about "moon" instead of "sunrise"?
looking for glasses
I realize
my sight is quite good
— Wilhelm Karud (Drevsjo, Norway)
Comment: * "Quite" is quite humorous.
March frost—
winter's last throw
of the dice.
— Tony Lewis-Jones (Bristol, UK)
Comment: * In a week, the sky will be clear and blue, and the temperature will be above zero.
ripples
on a puddle
faint stars
— martin gottlieb cohen (Egg Harbor, NJ, USA)
Comment: * The third line is fresh and dimly beautiful.
for so long
I haven't kissed you...
Valentine's
— Mario Massimo Zontini (Parma, Italy)
Comment: * A candid and humorous confession, and a bit shameful.
Route 66—
the Kerouac's Bible
in my backpack
— druart patrick (Urou et Crennes, France)
Comment: * Route 66: a highway that used to be the main road from Chicago to Los Angeles. Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" was published in 1957.
equinox
the choice between
vanilla and chocolate sauce
— Maria Kowal-Tomczak (Opole, Poland)
Comment: * The author seriously stands at the crossroads of life.
a sandstorm...
calm
only in the hourglass
— Robert Kania (Warsaw, Poland)
Comment: * A storm in the glass can sometimes rage.
long walk with the dog
she sniffs an empty Marlboro pack
in the dry grass
— jerry ball (Walnut Creek, CA, USA)
Comment: * I once picked up an empty cigarette packet which bore the label "Smoking Kills You!"
stranded
from the sea in supermarkets—
seagulls
— Maria Santomauro (Commack, NY, USA)
Comment: * My interpretation of the second line might be wrong in some way.
sun eclipse
watching it
through mammogram
— Katherine Samuelowicz (Chapel Hill, Australia)
Comment: * I appreciate the new use of "mammogram." The author is really a haijin.
so many words
without a word—
your hand in mine
— Marek Kozubek (Zywiec, Poland)
Comment: * "Silence is golden," especially between man and wife, I am very sure.
So they watch this year's
Wonderful cherry blossoms
Cat runs after mice
— Lothar M. Kirsch (Meerbusch, Germany)
Comment: * Naturally. There is nothing new under the sun.
farm for sale
only a crow sits
on the old bench
— Jacek Margolak (Kielce, Poland)
Comment: * Realtor: "Now Out for Lunch."
full moon
I feed my child
and its shadow
— Ramesh Anand (Tamil Nadu, India)
Comment: ** A very "haikuish" third line. Incidentally "full moon" may represent a mother.
plum blossoms
raining into
the tiger cage
— Don Hansbrough (Seattle, WA, USA)
Comment: * This is an excellent "toriawase" (juxtaposition) of two elements: the soft plum and hard tiger. The second line exhibits dexterity.
lovers in the wind
two intertwined kites
so far...so close
— Urszula Wielanowska (Kielce, Poland)
Comment: * In the Japanese lunar calendar, "kite" lies within the category of the New Year.
two regal belles
Elizabeth and Mary sail
into the harbour
— Barbara A. Taylor (Nimbin, Australia)
Comment: * An elegant and magnificent haiku. "Into the harbour" represents "stability" and "prosperity."
Medieval town
Each cobblestone
Right on its place
— Valeria Simonova-Cecon (Cividale del Friuli, Italy)
Comment: * Why don't you try to put in a seasonal word relating to your country. The scene will widen and become more interesting.
short movie on the wall
the title was "Rainbow"
directed by Sun-catcher
— yukiko minami smith (Raleigh, NC, USA)
Comment: * A witty one. This "rainbow" is not derived from the collection of seasonal words. Incidentally, it refers to the summer season in the old Japanese almanac.
Hollywood after rain...
a homeless on the puddles
full of the stars
— Lech Szeglowski (Gdansk, Poland)
Comment: * I think "a homeless" may be a bit disdainful in this case. You had better find some other interchangeable word.
It's someone's birthday:
I wonder if short poems
would be fitting gifts
— Sardi Nicola (Manta (CN), Italy)
Comment: * How about "my" instead of "someone's" in the first line. Or is "someone" a substitute for "my"?
meander river...
father's hand
lifts my chin
— Helga Stania (Greppen, Switzerland)
Comment: * "Meander" is the key word. However, I can't get the core meaning of the haiku.
snow melting
an old mill wheel scoops
the afterglow
— Ramona Linke (Beesenstedt, Germany)
Comment: ** A new scene I've never seen. "New things should be the flower of haiku" — Basho.
sunrise
by her bedside the poem
i sent
— christopher jupp (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Comment: * It's happening in the hospital room. She will soon recover … with the sunrise and an encouraging haiku.
unchained—
I spread out my arms
in the spring wind
— Heike Gewi (Aden-Crater, Yemen)
Comment: * I wonder if someone was unchained and released? The third line surely represents hope.
rainbow...
tricked
into happiness
— Tyrone McDonald (Brooklyn, NY, USA)
Comment: * A rainbow is a good omen that's not deceiving.
Time machine...
Eden blossoms out
of the dark
— Beate Conrad (Waterford, MI, USA)
Comment: ** His haiku style is very favorable and he has keen imagination, too.
spring's first blessing
a new Pope
#266
— Ernesto P. Santiago (Athens, Greece)
Comment: * I wish the new Pope had the power to end every war and reduce the world conflicts.
Indian flower—
the noise of night trains
in her eyes
— Wolfgang Beutke (Barum, Germany)
Comment: * Adapting the above haiku into a two liner: "the noise of night trains / Indian flower in her eyes" would make some kind of haiku. The original is fairly good, though.
sounds of spring
and in between...
butterflies
— Asni Amin (Tampines Street, Singapore)
Comment: ** Another writing style: sounds of spring … / in between / butterflies / Yes, the original is much better.
snow in summer
a herd of unicorn
on the beach
— Neal Whitman (Pacific Grove, CA, USA)
Comment: ** The first line hints at introducing another time and place out of this world. I really want to see the unicorn, as well as the tyrannosaurus rex.
sickle day moon
so many bird holes up
the old sequaro
— Bruce Ross (Bangor, ME, USA)
Comment: * The old sequaro has many holes like the sickle day moon for birds.
Piercing the silence
of the waiting room
a long gurgling
— druart patrick (Urou et Crennes, France)
Comment: * … and also piercing the nerves of patients waiting in the hospital. Or the gurgling may prevent various noises in the waiting room.
as i uncork
a bottle of solitude
effervescence
— Linda Ashok (Andhra Pradesh, India)
Comment: ** An unexpected and interesting use of "effervescence" — Linda has a knack for creating amusing haiku.
Scraping
Light off church walls
Forgotten prayers
— Lothar M. Kirsch (Meerbusch, Germany)
Comment: ** I can feel the dark solemn atmosphere of the cathedral.
light on the streets
the same carnation scent...
"Hello, Lisbon!"
— Romano Zeraschi (Parma, Italy)
Comment: * Hello, Mr. Zeraschi, I feel "Liston" with the same carnation scent.
Tossing
the coin up the eagle
the figure down
— Rahadian Tanjung (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Comment: * In my childhood, I aimed for a bat with a straw sandal.
old school house
balancing on the roof ridge
the spring moon
— Ramona Linke (Beesenstedt, Germany)
Comment: ** The second line could be an entirely new scene, although we've seen lots of similar moon haiku.
chapati in hand
the man on his stumps
hugs his mobile phone
— Barbara A. Taylor (Nimbin, Australia)
Comment: * A very busy businessman.
hanging bridge ...
the pot water wobbling
on her hip
— Ramesh Anand (Tamil Nadu, India)
Comment: * Is this a spectacular back view climbing up the hanging ladder on the rocks? Or simply walking across the suspension bridge?
moonlit walk
I map the realm of
fantasy
— Dietmar Tauchner (Puchberg, Austria)
Comment: * A fantastic moonlit walk. "Map" is unique.
sheep shearing—
beyond the lily pond
a vanilla moon
— Klemens Antusch (Regensburg, Germany)
Comment: * There are too many content-related words in the one haiku — seven — blurring the focus.
spring solitude...
an alien girl feeds
the sparrows
— Sandip Chauhan (Great Falls, VA, USA)
Comment: * The word "alien" is effective in this case. "Solitude" may be a bit close ("tsukisugi") to "alien." How about "early spring" instead of "spring solitude"?
spreading wings
a gull lets the wind
pick it up
— William Hart (Montrose, CA, USA)
Comment: ** We can clearly see a gull lightly being picked up and smoothly flying up.
jump over
and once again—
spring creek
— Andrius Luneckas (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Comment: * It's a fun to jump over the spring creek which gathers meltwater from the mountaintops.
in the dark
the heron turns
to the light
— Maria Santomauro (Commack, NY, USA)
Comment: ** A very "haikuic" scene and skillfully depicted. "Haiku shows us what we knew all the time, but didn't know what we knew." (R. H. Blyth: 1898-1964) Incidentally, the two original Japanese haiku by R. H. Blyth are: my very last journey / feeling deep regret for / the sasanqua blossoms / (tr. by IH) / under the leaf / a snail is dreaming / a blue dream / (tr. by IH)
alone I engrave
your kiss ideograph
on the grain of wheat
— Constantin Severin (Suceava, Romania)
Comment: * A haiku technique the author surely has.
antique fair
owner's face is more antique
spring haze
— Teiichi Suzuki (Osaka, Japan)
Comment: * The last word would be considered hackneyed, scheduled harmony.
a private garden
a rake and a hoe
against a wall
— jerry ball (Walnut Creek, CA, USA)
Comment: * The landlord might not be high-spirited.
spring fever—
my old man takes a look
at his lifeline
— Cezar-Florin Ciobica (Botosani, Romania)
Comment: ** The author takes a good look at her better half.
lean moon—
the question mark
of a dog's tail
— Alan Summers (Bradford-on-Avon, England)
Comment: ** Roughly put, haiku can consist of two factors: humor and seriousness. Haiku humor will long linger on with seriousness, different from the punch lines of party jokes.
In mother's room
the scent
of tea and time
— Elke Bonacker (Duisburg, Germany)
Comment: * "Time" is effective.
end station
only tumbleweed
goes on
— Jacek Margolak (Kielce, Poland)
Comment: * The station seems like the kind seen in deserted towns in Western movies.
Cheshire moon
fourteen ounces
of small tomatoes
— John Hamley (Marmora, ON, Canada)
Comment: * Cheshire moon: a yellowish white moon, perhaps. One ounce equals 28 grams × 14 = 392 grams. The author may be homesick. Things unknown can be a bit amusing.
last night the spring chill
and my wife in her cherry
blossom pajamas
— John Samuel Tieman (St. Louis, MO, USA)
Comment: ** What a cute wife of yours in cherry blossom pajamas.
Augusta
pine shadow
bunkered
— David Jacobs (London, UK)
Comment: ** I used to play golf with a lot of balls in case they went out of bounds. The Augusta golf course has a lot of pine trees along the long fairways and near the bunkers. A humorous and irreplaceable third line!
changing seasons
my passion
from science to art
— Anusha Tennakoon (Izumisano, Japan)
Comment: * I was weak at mathematics during my school days, and my passions haven't changed for half of my life!
soundless—
a heron and a cormorant
each on its own rock
— Mary White (Sandycove, Co Dublin, Ireland)
Comment: * Herons don't like cormorants because the cormorant is a haiku companion of Master Basho's: amusing and / gradually saddening / cormorant fishing boat / (tr. by IH)
office entrance
lines of mailboxes
stare at me
— Teiichi Suzuki (Osaka, Japan)
Comment: ** Those kinds of metal boxes are seen in the basement of the Empire State Building.
t-shirt weather
map of Paris
on my heart
— Don Hansbrough (Seattle, WA, USA)
Comment: ** I mistook the last word as "back."
spring breeze
a few of my plans
linger
— Stephen A. Peters (Bellingham, WA, USA)
Comment: * The rest of your plans have received the editorial "stet" mark.
With shawls
tied on heads
picking tea leaves
— Rahadian Tanjung (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Comment: * Tea picking gets going on the 88th day from the first day of spring in Japan.
The girl on a swing
touches the cloudless blue sky
with her bare feet
— Priscilla H Lignori (Montgomery, NY, USA)
Comment: * The key here is the haikuish word "touches." With this, the haiku will be highly esteemed.
new haircut
the warmth of spring sun
on my neck
— Jacek Margolak (Kielce, Poland)
Comment: * I'm almost bald, so I feel warmth directly from the spring sun. Thank heavens.
what I have
and what I haven't
a grain of sand
— Urszula Wielanowska (Kielce, Poland)
Comment: * "Haiku's appeal for me is its "world in a grain of sand" philosophy, the here and now of it. —Geraldine Clinton Little (1924-97)
the way cows stand
still in the rain
I miss you so much
— Robert Henry Poulin (Micco, FL, USA)
Comment: * The third line might debase the haiku quality here.
gusts of wind
on the eagle's wings...
a tilted sky
— Keith A. Simmonds (Tunapuna, Trinidad & Tobago)
Comment: * The sky must have been tilted in the eagle's eyes.
doves taking refuge
in the alcoves where once stood
Bamian Buddhas
— Raj K. Bose (Honolulu, HI, USA)
Comment: * What a shame those statues were destroyed.
spring rolls...
grandma unwraps
my childhood
— Alegria Imperial (Vancouver, BC, Canada)
Comment: * "Spring rolls" means pancake rolls in this case, not the spring rolls of Chinese cuisine, right?
morning calm...
the throb in the egret's neck
as I press the focus button
— K. Ramesh (Chennai, India)
Comment: * Sad to say, I don't have a Nikon or a Canon camera to take large, gorgeous pictures with a telephoto lens.
cranes
flying over the pachinko hall—
pale moon
— Romano Zeraschi (Parma, Italy)
Comment: ** This is haiku, indeed, skillfully composing juxtaposition. Excellent.
in the zen garden
concentric rings of raked sand—
dry ocean ripples
— Mark Miller (Shoalhaven Heads, Australia)
Comment: * The third line seems rather stereotyped. Please find "new things" out of the pebble garden.
resting
on her back—
crescent moon
— Maria Santomauro (Commack, NY, USA)
Comment: ** I like "a full moon" better.
butterfly
rest on me
let's fly together
— Bumma (St. Pierce, FL, USA)
Comment: * A sick boy must be in hospital.
a stillness
under the strider's leg
dimpled star
— martin gottlieb cohen (Egg Harbor, NJ, USA)
Comment: * I think it would be better to arrange this haiku into a two-liner, cutting off the last line.
rainy sunday...
stronger and stronger the smell
of baking apple pie
— Anna Goluba (Warsaw, Poland)
Comment: ** Two words exquisitely combined: "rainy" and "smell." As the rain continues, the smell will be enhanced.
hot spring
haiku and beer
invitation
— Chris (Lyon, France)
Comment: * I happened to meet a young Frenchman at the public bath nearby and asked him to send me a haiku when he got back.
fording the river
under full flower moon
frog and i
— Doris Lynch (Bloomington, IN, USA)
Comment: * The small letter "i" can mean that humankind is not as wise and as big as we acknowledge. However, it's certain that only human beings can use the letter I.
early spring...
a sparrow lands on a branch
and glistens too
— Bruce Ross (Bangor, ME, USA)
Comment: ** This haiku bears a heart-felt beautiful word: "glistens."
young girl plucks daisy
he loves me he loves me he
loves me he loves me
— Don Hansbrough (Seattle, WA, USA)
Comment: * When I was a young boy, I tried this magic over and over again, and the result was…
Spring rain
Has come at last
A cigarette's light
— Lothar M. Kirsch (Meerbusch, Germany)
Comment: * I remember one cut from the old movie "Arch of Triumph." It went something like, "Here, drink this. Drink it all at once. For a moment it will give you the illusion that you're living in a hot, dry country."
thick fog
a crow's caw
lost in it
— Robert Henry Poulin (Micco, FL, USA)
Comment: * The writer knows the trick of minimalist haiku. If he had dropped "caw," then the haiku would lack poetry.
knowing
all we do about zoos—
yet here we are again
— Helen Buckingham (Bristol, UK)
Comment: * Just like me! I like to see dinosaurs in the zoo.
dark clouds
on the wings of a firefly...
full moon
— Sandip Sital Chauhan (Great Falls, VA, USA)
Comment: * The ellipses (…) should be pulled up to the end of the first line.
on the sand
filled with light—
Cape Cod
— Romano Zeraschi (Parma, Italy)
Comment: * I'm sorry I can't find anything specific in this haiku about "Cape Cod."
sudden rain
obliterating all messages
on my dusty car
— Raj K. Bose (Honolulu, HI, USA)
Comment: * Thanks for giving me another aspect of Hawaiian rain … not so romantic.
Cape Coast Castle—
pointing where their owners gone by
sitting cannons
— Adjei Agyei-Baah (Kumasi, Ghana)
Comment: * Please give us other details of Cape Coast through haiku.
stranded dolphin—
a wave comes and goes
comes and goes
— Dan Iulian (Bucharest, Romania)
Comment: * We sometimes have small whales stranded on the Japanese shore. We all work together and push them back to the sea.
touching and detaching
the mud
a lotus
— Anusha Tennakoon (Izumisano, Japan)
Comment: * A lotus is flowering in the ponds of the heavens. The first two lines are occurrences on the Earth.
Soft spring rain
first graders looking skyward
first excursion
— Yuji Hayashi (Fukuoka, Japan)
Comment: * Lovely school children and proper introductory lines.
open ocean
parallel for a moment
a whale and the rainbow
— Zelyko Funda (Varazdin, Croatia)
Comment: ** A gigantic juxtaposition of two things. "Sugoi!" Gorgeous!
evening colors—
the dark silence of dismantled
battle ships
— Wolfgang Beutke (Barum, Germany)
Comment: * "Dark silence" is very haiku-like.
the weather lady
high-heeled and jacket-dressed—
frontal hot zones
— Abraham Freddy Ben-Arroyo (Haifa, Israel)
Comment: * On the tablet PC, she is so charming.
crescent moon
I wrap my jacket
around her
— Edgar Hopper (New York, NY, USA)
Comment: * A gentle and kind sketch of early autumn.
on my way home
the full moon
climbs the hill
— Jacek Margolak (Kielce, Poland)
Comment: * The third line is unique, haiku-like, really.
full moon...
bit by bit I remove
the veil of Isis
— Diana Teneva (Haskovo, Bulgaria)
Comment: * "The full moon" is fairly appropriate imagery for the Egyptian goddess of productivity.
a fish hook—
side by side DNA
pike's and mine
— Wieslaw Karlinski (Namyslow, Poland)
Comment: * DNA: deoxyribonucleic acid. I hope I have the same DNA as haiku masters.
spring sun
the ever-growing
grey hairs
— Stefan Wolfschuetz (Hamburg, Germany)
Comment: * My head has become bald, besides a few grey hairs.
south to north
traveling biwa player
follows the rain
— Neal Whitman (Pacific Grove, CA, USA)
Comment: * This must be inspired by Sogi (1421-1502): getting on and on / it's just like / a scattered shower (tr. by IH).
summer rainfall
leaning each other
oak and me
— Andrius Luneckas (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Comment: * "Oak" is a refuge from evil things and a pillar of the family.
a minnow
waggles
a heron
— Toshio Matsumoto (Osaka, Japan)
Comment: ** The author produces a minimalist piece having two small indefinite articles.
eye of the storm
a clear view of
the path ahead
— Michael Henry Lee (St. Augustine, FL, USA)
Comment: ** He made new discoveries of the poet Basho.
barefoot
among the clover
the bee's
— Stephen A. Peters (Bellingham, WA, USA)
Comment: * Good observation of small things, like Issa.
one blossom
violet
one small cloud
— Bernhard Kopf (Vienna, Austria)
Comment: * A likeness of two small things in heaven and on earth.
Rising summer moon.
I hurry for the speed lift
to the roof garden.
— Beate Conrad (Waterford, MI, USA)
Comment: * The summer moon is reddish and big and so charming.
wee hours
of the morning
a traffic light blinking
— Gregory Hopkins (Weaver, AL, USA)
Comment: * Why don't you put in a seasonal word like this: "of the winter morning."
dog days—
a stray puppy under
the ice cream van
— Cezar-Florin Ciobica (Botosani, Romania)
Comment: * I'll take care of that cute one.
lightning
portraits play
peekaboo
— Don Hansbrough (Seattle, WA, USA)
Comment: ** Haiku-like and strange.
cat stretched out
in the sun—
dog-days
— Tony Lewis-Jones (Bristol, UK)
Comment: ** Another "dog days." They are not so much dog days as cat days.
the pony tail
jumps with her
jogging
— Diana Teneva (Haskovo, Bulgaria)
Comment: * A cute young girl. Imagine a cutting sigh after the second line.
a glimpse of the moon
before the thunder comes—
Buddha's birthday
— Tzetzka Ilieva (Marietta, GA, USA)
Comment: * Buddha's birthday: April 8. After the storm, Buddha was said to be born …
along my garden wall
that little ugly weed
but oh! what a flower!
— Robert Henry Poulin (Micco, FL, USA)
Comment: * One of Basho's masterpieces: take a good look at that / a few shepherd-purses blooming / on the hedge / (tr. by IH).
eclipse—
sunflowers
disoriented
— Dan Iulian (Bucharest, Romania)
Comment: * This is not haiku, technically, but interesting.
raindrop fattens
ready to fall
the ripe mulberry
— Doris Lynch (Bloomington, IN, USA)
Comment: * There is no "like" at the head of the third line, but this is a metaphoric simile.
five o'clock tea—
my shadow goes always
to my neighbour's yard
— Lavana Kray (Iasi-Romania)
Comment: * You are going to have some interaction with the neighbor.
fell asleep
on the Roman mosaic
variegated butterfly
— Evgeny Ivanov (Moscow, Russia)
Comment: ** The Roman mosaic might have been printed on the wings of the butterfly. A good conception.
with the shower's music
what a great singer i am
in the bathroom
— Anusha Tennakoon (Izumisano, Japan)
Comment: * Without the aid of a shower, I can still be an "enka" (Japanese classic) singer bathing in a bath tab.
The setting sun
Behind some pines
And a wastebasket
— Lothar M. Kirsch (Meerbusch, Germany)
Comment: ** "A wastebasket" leaves a lingering impression over the whole scene.
a jumbo jet
flying over the Alps—
a postcard
— Abraham Freddy Ben-Arroyo (Haifa, Israel)
Comment: * An interesting development.
a painter
catching summer wind
on the canvas
— Teiichi Suzuki (Kawachinagano, Osaka)
Comment: * A haiku artist's word-picture.
summer storm
the lanky tree dahlias
curtsey to earth
— Barbara A. Taylor (Nimbin, Australia)
Comment: * The word "curtsey" is not so often used in haiku.
politicians—
water boiling in a pot
for soup nuts
— Ken Sawitri (Jawa Tengah, Indonesia)
Comment: * The words: "soup nuts" are new to me as a Japanese. I wonder what kind of nuts are there in the boiling pot?
mackerel sky
we travel through
dandelions
— Andrea Cecon (Cividale del Friuli, Italy)
Comment: * I can clearly imagine the transitional cuts in autumn.
tornado valley—
The Wizard of Oz
this is not
— Helen Buckingham (Bristol, UK)
Comment: * They're not magic, but tornadoes are often rampaging in this deep valley.
Walking alone
under the midday sun
no shadow
— Rahadian Tanjung (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Comment: ** This is from a deep realization.
Buddhist monk
on the streets of Melbourne
autumn leaves
— Mary Hind (Melbourne, Australia)
Comment: * I've met monks in yellow Buddhist clothes "Zen-walking" in the streets of Melbourne.
fishing prohibited
The common heron obviously
cannot read
— druart patrick (Urou et Crennes, France)
Comment: * Naturally it can't read French, and that kind of absurdity is actually realistic in the stream of this context.
Summer supermoon—
horses run at full gallop
inside the fenced field
— Priscilla H Lignori (Montgomery, NY, USA)
Comment: * The merit lies in the last two words.
summer coolness—
one breath of honeysuckle
has crossed the world
— William Seltzer (Gwynedd, PA, USA)
Comment: ** I was told so many times by the Japanese haiku teacher Tenko Kawasaki (1927-2009) that I should add some miraculous factors to my dull haiku. This haiku is a miracle!
august heat
shadow at the seaside beach
for five euros
— Andrius Luneckas (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Comment: * The price for the shade is moderate. Japanese tea stalls with shower facilities may cost around 20 dollars.
Chasing the white butterfly
till we both disappear
on white clover
— Patrick Sweeney (Misawa, Japan)
Comment: * You are happy having in the summertime such romantic rural fields nearby.
drifting stars...
a wishlist flutters
in the breeze
— Arvinder Kaur (Chandigarh, India)
Comment: ** It may be an Indian custom to hang a wish list on a branch. Three similar words (drift; flutter; breeze) enhance the appeal of the haiku in this case.
august's blue moon
a milky path to shore
faded flowers glisten
— Nancy Austin (Hazelhurst, WI, USA)
Comment: * The blue moon is the second full moon in a month, luring both young and older couples to the beachside.
unstable
wind treading
the summer grass
— Maria Kowal-Tomczak (Opole, Poland)
Comment: * A well-noticed characteristic of the wind: unstable.
gunshot marks
the birth of a child...
welcome to our world
— Helen Buckingham (Bristol, UK)
Comment: * I've never heard of such a gun salute.
homecoming
my dad's lemon tree
with a mistletoe
— Wahyu W. Basjir (Jogjakarta, Indonesia)
Comment: * I wonder if this is a good omen or not.
summer heat
throwing bread
to the swans' reflections
— Stephen Kusch (Oakland, CA, USA)
Comment: * The last word is haiku-like. The swans move back a little from the spectators and cast some shadows.
Grand Tour
with the ocean current
my Dad's ashes
— Wolfgang Beutke (Barum, Germany)
Comment: * The author performed a solemn ceremony, sprinkling his father's ashes over the sea.
sudden thunder
I remember
my first girl's name
— Rudi Pfaller (Remshalden, Germany)
Comment: * "Sudden thunder" brought the author back to the past days of youth.
swarm of fireflies—
even the scarecrow
looks handsome
— Cezar-Florin Ciobica (Botosani, Romania)
Comment: * The author found a new thing through the phosphorescence of fireflies.
growing wind
under the cattle herd's hoofs
hordes of grass
— Dietmar Tauchner (Puchberg, Austria)
Comment: * Winter is around the corner, and the moving season for the cattle has just begun.
Many shadows hasten
when the sky gets dark
to the lights
— Madoka Kikuchi (Sapporo, Japan)
Comment: * "Many shadows" is haiku-like.
cologne—
mixed with alcoholic scent
a sick nurse
— Teiichi Suzuki (Kawachinagano, Osaka)
Comment: * Perhaps it would be better to delete the dash in the first line?
bowing low...
an old gardener shades
tender sprouts
— Elaine Andre (Tacoma, WA, USA)
Comment: ** Three good words (low; old; tender) harmonize with each other, making an elegant haiku.
ventilator off—
the sound of dragonfly
wing beats
— Anatoly Kudryavitsky (Co. Dublin, Ireland)
Comment: * The author's fine and delicate sense of hearing.
walking at dusk
no memory of
a former life
— David Jacobs (London, UK)
Comment: * "Dusk" might be convincing us of the reincarnation. Voltaire (1694-1778): "After all, it is no more surprising to be born twice than it is to be born once. Everything in Nature is resurrection."
crescent moon—
neither half full
nor half empty
— Michael Henry Lee (St. Augustine, FL, USA)
Comment: * An amusing oratory…
home from war
no comfort anymore
rain on a tin room
— Robert Henry Poulin (Micco, FL, USA)
Comment: * I remember the war memorial piece by Mr. Michael McClintok: i eat alone / & pass the salt / for myself /
moment of diving
kingfisher meets
kingfisher
— Angelica Seithe (Wettenberg, Germany)
Comment: * A new angle for the camera's eye.
telling myself
it's okay to be alone
summer moon
— Stephen A. Peters (Bellingham, WA, USA)
Comment: * Why don't you go for a bike ride with a reddish summer moon.
new scarf—
so many ways
to frame a question
— Tyrone McDonald (Brooklyn, NY, USA)
Comment: * An unimaginable development of a short story.
writing a haiku
about a heron
my pen poised
— Gregory Hopkins (Weaver, AL, USA)
Comment: * Two slender pillars: one a leg of a heron and one a pen.
how like a dream
tonight I am a spider
in a web of stars
— jerry ball (Walnut Creek, CA, USA)
Comment: * Jerry, how are you doing? Your imagination has become much better these days.
slowly
felucca
moonlit
— Romano Zeraschi (Parma, Italy)
Comment: ** Excellent minimalism!
drought season
even the farmer's jokes
are dry
— Raj K. Bose (Honolulu, HI, USA)
Comment: * Ha, ha, ha …
stealing looks
from under cars—
postcoded cats
— Helen Buckingham (Bristol, UK)
Comment: * A new lifestyle for stray cats.
looking
through the bus window
her Cleopatra nose
— Abraham Freddy Ben-Arroyo (Haifa, Israel)
Comment: * There may be many Cleopatras in the city of Haifa. I want to see them in person.
a voice
unlike mine...
autumn wind
— R. D. Bailey (Arlington, VA, USA)
Comment: * I think you must have found a little autumn.
abandoned temple—
offering vastra to the deity
a spider (vastra: cloth)
— A. Thiagarajan (Mumbai, India)
Comment: ** I think it would be better to exchange the second line with the third line.
a yellow spider
crouching in a corner
invisible webs
— Ram Krishna Singh (Dhanbad, India)
Comment: * This haiku picture is the epitome of the human world.
empty street...
a boy touches the Labrador
through the gap in the gate
— K. Ramesh (Chennai, India)
Comment: * The Labrador is gentle and the boy tender, too.
end of the flood
the sun appears
in every puddle
— Jacek Margolak (Kielce, Poland)
Comment: * The beautifully twinkling puddles.
harvest moon
the scarecrow looks
a bit anorexic
— Alexey Golubev (Saint Petersburg, Russia)
Comment: * Anorexia: a serious illness that makes you want to stop eating. We eat to live, while the scarecrow has done all his work this year, so he does not eat to live.
my whole life
over the sandpit
hollow moon
— Jose del Valle (Rockville, RI, USA)
Comment: * Same with me ... I agree with you.
at the fringe of the sky
a farmer
stakes out his pasture
— Helga Stania (Greppen, Switzerland)
Comment: ** Though there is no seasonal word, I want to put this in the category of spring. Excellent.
Squirrels picnic
on the deck with pink carpet
under the crape myrtle
— yukiko smith (Raleigh, NC, USA)
Comment: * A lovely Disney picture.
last lady at the beach
waves
of emotion
— Gregory Hopkins (Weaver, AL, USA)
Comment: ** A melodramatic cut of the film.
The first day of school
children with backpacks line up...
row of sunflowers
— Priscilla H Lignori (Montgomery, NY, USA)
Comment: * Your granddaughter is in the line of backpackers. A happy grandmother.
Sweet summer,
the grass stands
after the stallions
— Lilia Racheva Dencheva (Rousse, Bulgaria)
Comment: ** The magical summer powers of the stallions. The grass saw them off with astonishment.
geese traveling north
a bird watcher's eye
returns to earth
— Kate Prudchenko (West Hollywood, CA, USA)
Comment: * The next cycle of nature begins.
sleek ebony-colored
girl, hosting people
high above clouds
— john donne (Karachi, Pakistan)
Comment: ** A beautiful fantasy of heaven.
The full moon
until half in the hole
of the chimney
— Verica Zivkovic (Letnja, Serbia)
Comment: * I look forward to a second, new version using the same words.
how many worlds
are in dew drops gone
as I walk across grass
— Robert Henry Poulin (Micco, FL, USA)
Comment: ** A "hosomi," a light haiku piece.
my shadow and i
in the shade of an ancient oak
almost alone
— jerry ball (Walnut Creek, CA, USA)
Comment: ** "Almost alone" is a haiku-like expression and here it means "not lonely."
Crescent moon
Ready to sickle
Ripe barley
— Lothar M. Kirsch (Meerbusch, Germany)
Comment: ** The crescent moon which is often compared to a sickle is now making a move for the crops.
besame mucho...
the sound of his voice
unfolding twilight
— Asni Amin (Tampines Street, Singapore)
Comment: * I used to sing this Latin number with passion, over and over again. The melody was suited for the darkness from twilight to midnight.
mid-summer dream...
sun flowers genuflecting
in the morning breeze
— Keith A. Simmonds (Tunapuna, Trinidad & Tobago)
Comment: * Genuflect: to bend your knee as a sign of worship or respect. This is a bit artificial.
passing the terrace
of an ice-cream café
a man smelling of horse
— Stjepan Rozic (Ivanic Grad, Croatia)
Comment: ** The author was deeply impressed by the horseman and cast an eye around the cafe searching for some contrastive objects.
Five rings turn
to the east, interlocking
five continents in peace
— Yuji Hayashi (Fukuoka, Japan)
Comment: * I have been thinking about the tragedy people suffered from the big tsunami, and the radiation from TEPCO's nuclear power plant. I've also been thinking a bit about the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.
summer wind—
bamboos dissecting the moon
in various ways
— Kashinath Karmakar (Durgapur, India)
Comment: * The word "dissect" might not be appropriate here in this context.
Lonesome motel—
how the sun dies down on
faded hangings
— Wolfgang Beutke (Barum, Germany)
Comment: * Haiku abhors direct raw adjectives like "sad," "forlorn" or "lonesome." We have to put our direct feelings upon objects and make them talk. This is an important haiku technique. Basho (1644-94): the sea has been rough / high up on the Sado Island / the Galaxy ... (tr. by IH).
a cold haze...
the island more itself
at high tide
— Bruce Ross (Bangor, ME, USA)
Comment: ** Like a masterpiece of Basho.
quiet sea
split by a submarine
sailing
— zelyko funda (Varazdin, Croatia)
Comment: ** A new type of haiku. If it had a seasonal word, it would be much better.
breaking up—
the winter landscape
of sunlit horses
— Alan Summers (Bradford-on-Avon, England)
Comment: ** There are no useless words or phrases. A perfect haiku.
my big nose—
an umbrella
for a cigarette
— Verica Zivkovic (Letnja, Serbia)
Comment: ** Is it so big? Exaggeration is one effective way to make haiku. However, there are not so many successful examples.
the sky
beyond mackerel—
giant catfish
— Helen Buckingham (Bristol, UK)
Comment: * I can't imagine it.
Yukon fish wheel
spiraling salmon
into the sky
— Doris Lynch (Bloomington, IN, USA)
Comment: * I can see a giant salmon up in the air.
Mirror
the way you look at it
looks back at you
— John Hamley (Marmora, ON, Canada)
Comment: * It's the same person, right? Or is it an illusion of mirror magic?
back to Metropolis...
flavor of wild strawberries
still in my mouth
("Metropolis": a silent film by Fritz Lang)
— Romano Zeraschi (Parma, Italy)
Comment: * I picked wild strawberries as a child. I remember their sour taste.
This harvest moon
over downtown Manhattan
spreads in the net
— Wolfgang Beutke (Barum, Germany)
Comment: * It is worth seeing the harvest moon, actually.
what goes
and what stays
autumn wind
— Gregory Hopkins (Weaver, AL, USA)
Comment: * This was inspired by Shiki Masaoka (1867-1902): you are going / i am staying / two autumns / (tr. by IH).
setting sun
the old man rakes
autumn fragrance
— Andrea Cecon (Cividale del Friuli, Italy)
Comment: * "Fragrance" is the "ochi," the haiku's punch line.
passing gas
after a look around
blaming the dog
— jerry ball (Walnut Creek, CA, USA)
Comment: * A funny haiku, which Jerry is good at.
country road—
cyclist runs after
receding rain
— Teiichi Suzuki (Kawachinagano, Osaka)
Comment: ** An entirely new grasp of entity. Excellent.
autumn dawn
at the cave entrance
glow-worms begin to pale
— Andre Surridge (Hamilton, New Zealand)
Comment: ** Emitting phosphorous pale light, the first line is effective.
light layers of fog
my friend and I
so comfy in the silence
— Heike Gewi (Aden-Crater, Yemen)
Comment: * I've never been in such layers, so I don't have a full understanding.
autumn—
through the woods
a golden stream
— john mcdonald (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Comment: * The plural form of "stream" would be better, I think, because in autumn most of the tree leaves have fallen and light comes through in many bundles.
rain tickles
the little noise
in my head
— Ernesto P. Santiago (Athens, Greece)
Comment: * The author's health is all right.
snowflakes gather strength
lightning
too dim for words
— Tyrone McDonald (Brooklyn, NY, USA)
Comment: * Too many content-loaded words make a haiku too technical.
stubble fields—
the nurse swaps
father's urine bag
— Ramona Linke (Beesenstedt, Germany)
Comment: ** Sorry, I can't imagine the whole picture.
Autumnal tunes for
a penny hurdy gurdy
man winds away
— Beate Conrad (Waterford, MI, USA)
Comment: * With two similar words, I at once remember Issa's haiku: a cool breeze / winding its way through / has arrived. Autumnal = cool. To be frank, though, I cannot grasp the full picture here.
The wind machine
behind the theatre curtains
billowing sound
— Rahadian Tanjung (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Comment: ** The wind machine is very rare. I don't know how to use it in the back of the theater.
A second life
for objects ready to throw
—opened attic
— Marie Jeanne Sakhinis-de Meis (Avignon, France)
Comment: * Miscellaneous useless things must be stacked in the attic.
sunrise
from silence to silence
wings of birds
— Helga Stania (Greppen, Switzerland)
Comment: * The second line is a bit ambiguous, but expressive.
autumn chill—
the vet euthanasing my cat
calls her "my friend"
— Origa (Lansing, MI, USA)
Comment: * This is the first time for use of this word, euthanasia — a sorrowful but inevitable choice. The owner has extended the execution till the end of the chilly autumn.
Bowed head
Looking into a puddle
The cranes above
— Lothar M. Kirsch (Meerbusch, Germany)
Comment: * This is the typical style of haiku dealing with the shadows of objects. Very often the shadow represents the entity more vividly than the object itself does.
riding Greyhound bus—
seeing life in window light
in small towns at dusk
— Robert Henry Poulin (Micco, FL, USA)
Comment: ** The trustworthy travelers in small towns go nearby by bus or by bicycle or on foot.
Fall theater
the curtain rises
for the play of colors
— Elke Bonacker (Duisburg, Germany)
Comment: * A very famous Japanese actor, Tatsuya Nakadai, started a theater and studio on Sado Island that has an opening to the natural environment behind the stage.
autumn deepens
clickclick of one tablet
in the bottle
— iokua (Petaluma, CA, USA)
Comment: * The author must have consumed all the tablets except one. The opening line is effective.
sleepless night
trying to turn off light
of the Hunter's Moon
— Djurdja Vukelic Rozic (Ivanic Grad, Croatia)
Comment: * The harvest moon in September; the hunter's moon in October; the cold or icy moon in winter; the hazy moon in spring, etc. This is haiku-like, but the first line seems a bit too easy-going, I think.
cycling in the park
the moon passes through the trees
same and different
— Mario Massimo Zontini (Parma, Italy)
Comment: * The third line is a discovery.
clear sky—
the vendor sells clouds
of cotton candy
— Geethanjali Rajan (Chennai, India)
Comment: * Very good. Kazuo Sato (1927-2005) produced the following masterpiece: one by one / handing over a spring breeze / a balloon seller / (tr. by IH).
a political poster
nailed to a banyan tree...
autumn gust
— Sandip Chauhan (Great Falls, VA, USA)
Comment: * Buddha gained spiritual enlightenment under the banyan trees. That politician on the poster will surely be defeated in the election.
heron's flight—
grey parabolas
on the forest wall
— Wieslaw Karlinski (Namyslow, Poland)
Comment: * Mother Earth sometimes puts forth fascinating contrast.
deserted
fire
doesn't touch the forest
— Brendan Duffin (Co. Antrim, Ireland)
Comment: ** An excellent minimalist haiku. The length of each line indicates the extensive traces of the fire.
shifting breeze
the worn rope bridge sways
just a little
— Erik Linzbach (Dewey, AZ, USA)
Comment: * How about just "breeze" in the first line, without "shifting?" Then the last line will be more realistic.
All Soul's Day
stoplights are reflected
in the wet street
— Heinz Schneemann (Berlin, Germany)
Comment: ** All Soul's Day: November 2. The two unrelated factors, the day and stoplights, correspond to each other, not so close but not too far.
On the potter's wheel
shaping an autumn vessel
with prayerful hands
— Priscilla H Lignori (Montgomery, NY, USA)
Comment: * I can see the seven flowers (a bush clover or a bell flower, etc.) in "an autumn vessel." Pottery can bring longevity because one unconsciously touches the healthy earth.
the upper world
and the one below it
in rain
— Danica Bartulovic (Podstrana, Croatia)
Comment: ** "Rain" belongs to the genre of autumn, and the third line is very impressive.
billowing clouds—
the lake halved into
silver and slate
— Valeria Barouch (Geneva, Switzerland)
Comment: * This has a very beautiful, naturalistic reality.
winter milking:
a cow's breath with mine
fills the barn
— Robert Henry Poulin (Micco, FL, USA)
Comment: * Dairy farmers work 24 hours a day and they sleep the remaining hours.
banana slug
plodding the rainforest path
my to-do list
— Doris Lynch (Bloomington, IN, USA)
Comment: * I have never made a to-do list. My schedules are uncertain.
good medical report
the colour of autumn crocus
stronger
— Rudi Pfaller (Remshalden, Germany)
Comment: * A happy recovery!
autumn's roses:
one is my house
and the other one—a poem
— Smajil Durmisevic (Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Comment: * A haiku poem.
blowing poppies
the only remains of soldiers'
traumas
— Wolfgang Beutke (Barum, Germany)
Comment: * "Poppies" and "trauma" are a bad match.
before the verdict
woman correspondent
looks in the mirror
— Evgeny Ivanov (Moscow, Russia)
Comment: * Naturally.
a drunk Santa
caroling in full voice,
my dog all ears
— Natalia Kuznetsova (Moscow, Russia)
Comment: * The thermometer registers 26 degrees below zero, lower than I have ever seen.
starless night—
my daughter stares
at the Christmas lights
— Billy Antonio (Pangasinan, Philippines)
Comment: * It's so dramatic to see Santa come from the sea in a bathing suit in the Philippines.
Down from the station
she took a fallen leaf
off his shoulder
— Yuji Hayashi (Fukuoka, Japan)
Comment: * The haiku moves as scheduled.
MAVEN mission to Mars—
the red planet chandeliers
in my autumn garden
— Origa (Lansing, MI, USA)
Comment: * Your house in Lansing, Michigan looks wonderful, too.
squabbling and screeching...
eager for a prize
trawler returns
— Joan Williams (London, UK)
Comment: * The onomatopoeia of the first line smells like fishermen.
wedding procession
making their way
through dry leaves
— zelyko funda (Varazdin, Croatia)
Comment: * A thick, dry carpet to the wedding chapel.
year's end
pieces of a puzzle
littered on the table
— John Zheng (Itta Bena, MS, USA)
Comment: * one last small piece / of "shogi" chess / unfinished / year end / (by Isamu Hashimoto)