Haiku Society of America Haibun Renku Awards for 2003

Haiku Society of America Renku Awards
in Memorial of Bernard Lionel Einbond

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HSA Renku Awards for 2003

Alice Benedict and Patricia Machmiller
judges

Grand Prize

New Coolness

Yu Chang
Paul MacNeil
John Stevenson
Hilary Tann

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New Coolness

new coolness
a perfect day
for climbing

js

red maple leaves
line most of the bootprints

pwm

she reads
mother's pancake recipe
by moonlight

ht

the usual suspects
of a murder mystery

yc

accountants
in three-piece suits
and handcuffs

pwm

I offer you my name
with a hyphen

js

at Las Vegas
our best man
hits the jackpot

yc

bright nasturtiums
frame the herb garden

ht

all five
car doors
frozen shut

js

cardboard boxes
on a subway vent

yc

tattoos tensed
the harpooner
listens

pwm

eye to eye
with an eagle

js

it rained
on their golf course
rendezvous

ht

whispering...
under a pool umbrella

pwm

sangria
on the rocks
and slivers of moon

yc

the photojournalist
adjusts his lens

ht

we sense
the silent prayer
is about to end

js

rich soil
yields to the harrow

pwm

on the classroom wall
shadows
of magnolia blossoms

ht

homemade nets
for the smelt run

yc

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Honorable Mention

Open Convertible

Roger Abe
Ann Bendixen
donnalynn chase
Anne Homan
June Hopper Hymas
Carol Steele

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Open Convertible

the climb up green hills
too narrow for cars to pass
open convertible

cs

warmed by spring sunshine
well-planned bricks, wood & glass

dc

a measuring worm
inches across my ankle
it tickles

ah

wasabi peas
in a porcelain bowl

ab

between the clouds
every now and then—
fingernail moon

ah

as a thank you gift
he paints her an autumn landscape

jhh

the quail struts and sings
along the deck railing—
"Chi-ca-go"

ah

can they see Godzilla
through a steamed-up windshield?

ra

talk over breakfast
of renewing our vows—
our coffee grows cold 

dc

angry gods
clash over the desert

ab

a new talk show
with Monica Lewinsky
minus her beret

jhh

back from China - my workmates
greet me with facemasks

dc

spotlight burned out
but tonight it doesn't matter—
summer moon 

jhh

lizards skitter any old way 
across the railroad ties

ah

above the floodwaters
Coyote lives on Mt. Diablo—
Miwok folk tale

ah

recommended restaurant— 
sullen waiters but good food

cs

Kiyoko - tell me
how would you tread on these
cherry petals?

dc

long lazy ripples where
willow tips touch the stream

jhh

silver windmills
line the ridges— 
only a few spinning

ah

hard-boiled eggs
yucky without salt

ab

ranch hands discuss
the merits of yodeling— 
the hogs just snort

ra

verse writing as a game—
we argue with laughter

dc

I make new clothes 
for my granddaughter's doll—
Christmas Eve

cs

winter mist - her neighbor
must enter a nursing home

ah

Marines play ping-pong—
an occasional distant 
burst of gunfire

ah

"that OLD BLACK MAGIC"
with Louis and Keely

ra

ninety thousand hits
she punches in another
sperm dot com

ab

feng shui at work
in our master bedroom

dc

moon of falling leaves
above the flicker's grave
we set a stone

jhh

November dusk
winds scour the cliff

ah

the salmon leaps
over obstacles, toward
that familiar scent

ra

a shaft of sun
on the bicycle's yellow basket

jhh

Michelangelo's
Madonna, can marble know
grief and joy?

ra

hand-in-hand the toddlers
lead the family hike

ah

Ikebana class—
the teacher arranges
first cherry blossoms

cs

Mother's day surprise
it must be good - she smiles

ra

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The Haiku Society of America sposors this annual award for renku of 36, 20, or 12 stanzas.

See the contest guidelines for the HSA Renku Awards.

For more information about the goals of this contest, download a copy of the HSA Renku Contest Committee Report (pdf) published in Frogpod XIII:2 (May 1990).

Awards by year:

| 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 |

 

2003 judges commentary:

We chose two winning poems that generally hold to the formal structure of renku and also capture its playful collaborative spirit. Both poems, in their own distinctive ways, skillfully touch on a panorama of human experience with tenderness and humor.

Grand Prize - New Coolness

The Grand Prize winner is New Coolness, a nijuin (20-link) renku with four authors. The poem as a whole has a stately tone, set at the beginning with the expansive sense of the outdoors on a fine early autumn day. As expected, the first two verses are tightly linked, followed by a shift in location, topic, and point of view in the third verse. After this calm start, shifts become more lively. A freer range of topics, as well as interesting shifts in scale and focus of each verse quickens the pace. Yet because verses all have a kind of contained intensity, reinforced by similarity in rhetoric and syntax, the poem remains contemplative throughout. The treatment of the flower verses is unorthodox. Normally, these verses must refer to cherry blossoms, but the authors chose to use "bright nasturtiums" and "shadows of magnolia blossoms" instead. The effect is interesting, especially in a 20-link poem in English. However, if you were expecting cherry blossom verses with their complex allusive resonance, these verses, though well-integrated in the poem, might be less captivating.

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2003 judges commentary:

Honorable Mention - Open Convertible

An Honorable Mention is awarded to Open Convertible, a kasen renku with five authors. This poem has a much wider emotional and rhetorical range than the grand prize winner. In addition to the variety of topics, the authors use quotations, questions, and varied syntax (not just statements). This adds liveliness to fast sections and heightened emotional impact to verses that are already in high relief (such as the first flower verse). More than one set of verses are beautifully composed and linked. For example the sequence from verse 23 to 26 is an elegant excursion from winter verses to the beginning of the series of love verses:

23) I make new clothes/for my granddaughter's doll/ Christmas Eve

24) winter mist—her neighbor/must enter a nursing home

25) Marines play ping-pong/an occasional distant/burst of gunfire

26) "that OLD BLACK MAGIC"/with Louis and Keely

However the poem's opening is not handled as skillfully. Topics are repeated ("sunshine" and "clouds"), and the wakiku (2nd verse) is a bit unfocused. Because the opening verses set the tone for the whole renku, these are serious shortcomings. In other sections as well, repeated topics create parallel links that tend to deflate the energy of the poem. We mention this because in our experience, renku benefits from careful editing, both during and after composition, with a view to formal renku rules.

What might at first seem like prescriptions and prohibitions, are more like efficient reminders to record a playful poetic conversation connected not by subject matter, rhetoric, or point of view, but by sensitivity to the feeling and experience that breathes in each verse. The winning poems do approach this ideal, and we congratulate the authors for their success!

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