Modern Haiku, Vol. 49.2, Summer 2018

earthworm
castings
the
raised
shadows
of
my
scars



longer days
I knight my sister
with an icicle

Fifth Honourable Mention
Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Award Competition for 2018


Judge's Comments:

A sense of delight pervades this haiku. The days are growing longer, but the ice hasn't melted yet. Here two children are playing outside, and one of them "knights" the other, using an icicle like a sword to invest a "knighthood" upon the other. Just as the "longer days" tell us that spring is coming, so too does this poem's playful and imaginative zeal. This poem, as with all good haiku, lets things become what they are, and as readers we join the celebration.

—Michael Dylan Welch

Modern Haiku, Vol. 48.2, Summer 2017

boundary lines
every fence post topped
with a baseball cap


last campout . . .
sandhill cranes call down
the northern lights

Honourable Mention
Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Award Competition for 2017


Judge's Comments:

The first line implies autumn, which implies migration of the sandhill cranes to their wintering grounds. There is much to be found between the lines of this poem. I can see sparks from the campfire drifting upward in the night. Then into the camper's consciousness, the wonderful, rattly yodels of the cranes, followed by the waves and ripples of the northern lights. If I were the camper, I might think, "A heavenly light show and cranes on the move; all's right with the world."

—Ferris Gilli