New Zealand Poetry Society Haiku Competitions 2013 Results

In June I was the competition judge for the junior section of the New Zealand Poetry Society Haiku Competition. I had a great time doing this job. You can read about it and find out the results here.

Then last month I found out I'd won fifth place in the adult section of the competition. Yay! Great to have finally cracked the top five of my home country's major haiku contest. I was lucky enough to also receive a commended placing. You can read the full judge's report by Nola Borrell here.

My congratulations to all the winners! Next on the New Zealand haiku calendar is the 7th Kokako Haiku & Senryu Competition. Find out all you need to know here.

The 7th Kokako Haiku and Senryu Competition

Closing date: 31st October 2013

First Prize NZ$200

Second and Third Place prizes of NZ$50 each

Judge: Barbara Strang

Send entries to:

The Kokako Haiku Competition,

Patricia Prime, co-editor

42 Flanshaw Road

Te Atatu South

Auckland 0610

New Zealand

Please make cheques out to Kokako

Overseas entrants may send cash at their own risk

Conditions of entry

1. Haiku must be previously unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere.
2. Entry fee is NZ$5 for every 3 haiku; for overseas entries, AU$4 or US$4 for every 3 haiku. Cheques acceptable or cash at your own risk.
3. Send two copies of each group of haiku, with your name, address and email on one copy only.
4. 1st, 2nd & 3rd haiku, 3 Highly Commended and 3 Commended entries will be published in Kokako 20 (April 2014).
5. Winners will be notified by email or mail.
6. Any theme is acceptable.

Any queries, email: pprime (at) ihug (dot) co (dot) nz

 

Hortensia Anderson Memorial Haiku Competition

The 1st “aha” (Annual Hortensia Anderson) 

Memorial Haiku Awards Competition 2013

This Memorial Haiku Competition is to honour the memory of well known and respected New York based haiku poet, Hortensia Anderson. Sponsored by Haiku Oregon. Find all the details here.

The XIV Calico Cat Haiku Contest

I entered the Calico Cat haiku contest for the first time last week as it was in honour of the late Hortensia Anderson. The results are now out and I'm very happy to see that I have been awarded an Honorable Mention for:

shooting star

I fold another

origami heart

Congratulations to the winner Sanjuktaa, who also took first place in the Haiku My Photo Challenge that I judged last month. You can view all the award winners and the write up here. A big thank you to Origa for running this wonderful competition.

Competition Results

At the beginning of this month I was busy judging my first haiku competition - The Haiku My Photo Challenge devised and run by Christine L. Villa over at her blog Blosson Rain. It wasn't an easy task! But a great learning experience for me and a joy to get intimate with some really good haiku. You can read my judge's comments and see the winning haiku as a haiga here.

Chrissi ran this contest to thank the on-line haiku community for giving her so much support and encouragement. While you're visiting Blosson Rain please send out a prayer for Chrissi. Her husband is currently battling a brain tumour and they both need our love and support. Kia kaha, Chrissi!

The other competition that closed at the beginning of this month was Kathy Uyen Nguyen's NaPoWriMo Book Giveaway over on her blog Origami Lotus Poetry. It was judged by Kathy and Peter Newton, who's book she was giving away. My rengay writing buddy Cara Holman was the runner-up, and you can see the winning poems and judge's comments here.

I'm hoping to run a tanka competition here at Swimming in Lines of Haiku in my birthday month of July. I have a great prize for the winner! I just hope my health lets me do it. Watch this space! :)

Two NZ Haiku Contests Closing In May

Katikati Haiku Contest

Cash prizes totalling $NZ175 in the senior section. All proceeds to the Haiku Pathway project. Judges are Owen Bullock (senior) and Catherine Mair (junior).
Closes: In hand May 16.
Cost: Within NZ: 18 & over - $5 for 3 haiku or $2 for 1 haiku. 17 & under - $1 for up to 2 haiku. For overseas entrants: $US5/3 haiku or $US2/haiku.
For full details see the website.

NZPS International Haiku Contest

Top five haiku/senryu will be awarded $NZ100 each; first place will also receive the Jeanette Stace Memorial Prize of $NZ150. Winners will be published in the NZPS annual anthology. Judge is Barbara Strang.
Closes: May 31.
Cost: $1.50/haiku, for NZPS members every 5th haiku is free.
Full details from the website.

NZPS Haiku Junior Contest

Cash prizes, plus one winner will also receive the Jeanette Stace Memorial Prize of $NZ100 open only to entrants who are 17 years of age or younger on May 31, 2012. Schools may send bulk entries, but poems must be clearly attributed to authors. Winners will be published in the NZPS annual anthology.
Closes: May 31.
Cost: $1/haiku.
Full details from the website. For information on group school entries, go here.

HAIKU MY PHOTO CHALLENGE - I'm the Judge!

I was very excited to be asked by Christine L. Villa to judge her haiga contest to celebrate National Poetry Month. It will be a blind judging, so even though all entries are appearing on her blog Blossom Rain, I won't be peeking! Instead Chrissi will send me the photo and all the entries (excluding names) after the closing date and I'll be choosing a winner based on which haiku best works with her image. The winner will receive a pack of six postcards with Chrissi's own photos.

Here are the details from Chrissi:

1) On the first day of the contest, I'll be posting my photo. Submit ONLY ONE haiku for the photo and type it on the comments section. The haiku must be the work of the submitting author, unpublished online or in print.
2) Below your haiku, write your full name and email address. If you don't want to post your email address, email me at chrissi731@hotmail(dot)com. I need to be able to email you if you win.
3) Everyone is welcome to comment on any haiku, but please no critiquing. 

4) The judge is Kirsten Cliff. 

5) Contest runs from April 23 through midnight of April 30 (PST).
6) The winner will be announced at 7:00 pm, May 4, 2012 (PST) with the collaborative haiga. If the winner doesn't reply within three days after the day of announcement another poet will be receiving the prize.

7) All rights revert back to the authors after the winner has been announced.

Chrissi says, "This contest is also my way of thanking all the haiku poets whom I've met online. I feel so blessed to find all of you who've been supportive and helpful in my haiku journey. I look forward to seeing you all. Let's all celebrate together and have some fun! :-)"

Here's the link to the post with the photo and all the entries so far: HAIKU MY PHOTO CHALLENGE
Enjoy yourselves! And I'll see you with the announcement of the winner next week :)

December Round-Up - Week 52: TICK!

Here's how I'm doing on my 2011 goal of submitting poetry to a publication or competition every week:

• week forty-nine - submitted two haiku for the 2011 Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems
• AND I submitted my third set of ten haiku for DailyHaiku
• week fifty - submitted three tanka and two haiku to Aubrie Cox's New Year's Dragon blog post at Yay Words!, two haiku and two tanka accepted!
• AND submitted six haiku to The Heron's Nest, awaiting outcome
• week fifty-one - submitted one haiku to the Fujisan Haiku Competition (closes 20 January 2012)
• week fifty-two - submitted one haiga to the WHA Haiga Contest (first time submitting here)

And that's it. I've done it! For every week of 2011 I submitted a poem of some kind, some where :) Phew!

It's been a very rewarding year poetry-wise: not just because I reaped the benefits of so many submissions by being published much more, and much more widely, but because I also meet heaps of great haiku-folk through blogging and on Facebook, and through participating in a few PAD (poetry-a-day) challenges (small stones x2, NaHaiWriMo, NaPoWriMo) so that I'm now happily part of the on-line haiku community - a great place to be and to be part of :)

Thank YOU for being part of it with me through Swimming in Lines of Haiku. I'll be back next year with more poetry, and, knowing me, another challenge to be working towards...

Have safe and happy New Year's celebrations!

November Round-Up - The Hills Are Alive With Haiku

Gosh, so much happened in November that I don't know where to begin! Definitely the busiest month this year, jam-packed with good things. It started with a short honeymoon after my partner and I were wed on 31 October. A week after getting back we bought a house. Then about two weeks after that we moved!

We've been in our new home a week now and are enjoying the quiet and quirks that come with a life lived in the country. One change that we weren't expecting was the downscale to dial-up Internet. Although it is kinda cool to be so rural that we can't get broadband. It means you have to slow down. Perfect!

Here's how I'm doing on my 2011 goal of submitting poetry to a publication or competition every week:

• week four-four - submitted ten haiku to Notes From the Gean, three haiku accepted!
• week forty-five - submitted ten tanka to Ribbons, one tanka accepted!
• week forty-six - submitted five haiku to the Thom Williams Memorial Contest (first time submitting here)
• week forty-seven - submitted five haiku and five tanka to paper wasp (awaiting outcome)
• week forty-eight - submitted five haiku and five tanka to Kokako (awaiting outcome)

November saw my poetry appear in a handful of stones twice, and my first week of haiku published on DailyHaiku, which you can read here. I was very pleased to see that the 'bride-to-be' haiku went on-line the day before I got married!

Only four weeks left now of submitting each week and I would have achieved the goal I set for myself in the first week of January. I won't be keeping it up in 2012 (especially not with dial-up!) but I'm sure I'll find another challenge to excite my senses. There is certainly a lot of haiku to be found around these parts :)

Tears in Ice Diver

            tears
            the doctor shifts
            in his seat




Commended, New Zealand Poetry Society International Haiku Contest 2011
Appeared in Ice diver, New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology 2011

October Round-Up - A Surprise Or Two Or Three...

I had a couple of great surprises this month: I was excited to receive a contributor's copy of paper wasp and to find that four of my haiku and four of my tanka were published inside! And I was absolutely ecstatic to be accepted as a contributor for Cycle 12 of DailyHaiku where 28 of my haiku will appear over the next six months. My first week of haiku started on 30 October and can be read here.

Here's how I'm doing on my 2011 goal of submitting poetry to a publication or competition every week:

• week forty - submitted one haiku to the Polish International Haiku Competition (first time submitting here)
• week forty-one - submitted ten tanka (+1 for the contest) to Moonbathing (first time submitting here), one tanka accepted!
• AND submitted ten tanka to Notes from the Gean, one tanka accepted!
• AND submitted one haiga to Yay Words!, which appeared in Aubrie Cox's Tea with Trolls post
• week forty-two - submitted two haiku, two tanka and one haiga to tinywords (first time submitting here)
• AND submitted six small stones to a handful of stones, three accepted!
• week forty-three - submitted two haiku to the Sketchbook Sep/Oct 2011 "cemetery" Haiku Thread
• AND I submitted my second set of ten haiku for Daily Haiku

During the month, my haiku, tanka and haiga appeared online at DailyHaiku, Notes from the Gean, Issa's Untidy Hut, Chrysanthemum, Yay Words! and in paper wasp (print). And there's much more to come this November and December as all my diligence in submitting each week, and trying so many new journals, pays off. Only eight weeks left!

But wait, there's more...

I've left the biggest surprise 'til last...

Cameron and I eloped last week and were married at 2pm on 31 October in Auckland (NZ). Here's our favourite photo from the day, which was taken just after our first kiss as a married couple!

Paper Cranes & Kokako 15

The September issue of Kokako arrived in my mailbox yesterday morning sporting my paper cranes image on the cover. My scan here of the print copy hasn't come out very clear so please do pop on over to my Photography page and check out the original image.

folded
next to the washing
my tired girlfriend


Cameron Elliot (my fiancé)







Don't forget about the The 6th Kokako Haiku and Senryu Competition which closes on October 31st. Entry details here.

The First Polish Haiku Contest in English

Entrants: competition open to anyone
Submission Period: 1 August 2011 — 16 October 2011
Number of Haiku: 1 (one)
Language: English
Theme: free
Style: contemporary: three lines within the 5-7-5 syllable pattern;
         no strict syllable count
Fee: none
Entry form: here

Jury: Jane Reichhold - Final Judge;
        Rafał Zabratyński - Pre-Selector

Results: 11 November 2011
            (Jury’s decision is definitive and irrevocable)

Prizes: diplomas and souvenirs for:
          1st Place (one haiku)
          2nd Place (one haiku)
          3rd Place (one haiku)
          Commendations (ten haiku)

Coordinator: Grzegorz Sionkowski
Originator: Krzysztof Kokot