Photo
©Mark E. Wilson
Used with permission.
©Mark E. Wilson
Used with permission.
Charlotte Digregorio, Midwest
Regional Coordinator of the Haiku Society of America (whose bio and poems
appear on the original post for the August poetry challenge), agreed to judge
the submissions. Here are the haiku that she selected as winners:
The First Place haiku
is:
Walls of graying
stone
crumble into gravel
shards—
hewn by salty spray
~ Mark E.
Wilson
Mark E.
Wilson has been a lawyer in Chicago for about
twenty-five years. He lives in Lake County, Illinois
with his wife and daughters, dog and two cats.
His writing is inspired by American life – in families and
neighborhoods, suburbs and cities, courtrooms and board rooms, schools and play
grounds, in the mind and in the mind's eye.
His poetry has been published in YesPoetry
and other virtual places. Mark is
also a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, and an award-winning fingerstyle
guitarist. You may find a few of his
poems at www.riseandshinepoerty.blogspot.com.
The Second Place
haiku is:
picking blueberries
in Pa's favorite patch
gone now seven years
~ Peggy Trojan
Peggy Trojan, retired English teacher, lives in the
north Wisconsin woods by a trout creek. She has been published in a wide
variety of journals and anthologies, including Talking Stick, Verse
Wisconsin, Dust and Fire, Echoes, Red Cedar, and others. She
recently won an Honorable Mention in the Wisconsin People and Ideas
contest. She is a member of Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.
Copyright on poems are retained by the poets.
Feedback on Submissions from the Judge:
Digregorio included the following general comments
when she notified me of the winners:
These are the major
problems I saw with most of the entries:
1) Explaining, rather
than suggesting. Haiku is subtle. It evokes an image.
2) A clutter of
images without any connection. Haiku should have either one image or two. When
there are two images, they are seemingly unrelated at first reading. In
thinking about them, the connection becomes evident.
3) Too many
adjectives/description. Adjectives should be used sparingly, if at all.
4) Abstractions.
Haiku is concrete with concrete images.
5) The 5-7-5
traditional syllable form of haiku is not required. Often, it leads to poets
padding their lines to get enough syllables.
Haiku Society Meeting Invitation from
the Judge
The Haiku Society of
America will hold its National Meeting/Symposium, Friday through Sunday, Sept.
27-29, in Evanston, IL. It is free and open to the public. There will be expert
speaker-poets from the U.S., Canada, and Japan. There will also be a
free raffle of haiku books/journals. For details/registration form, contact
Charlotte Digregorio, c-books@hotmail.com. (There is a nominal charge for Saturday
lunch and Sunday cultural activities.)
© 2013 Wilda Morris
