Mandy's Pages Annual Tanka Contest, 2016

each moment
here on earth is numbered . . .
so why not
fly too close to the moon,
and hang our hats on stars?


1st Place


Judge's Comments:

I chose this as the winner because I wanted to base my decision on originality, freshness, and authenticity. The poet's writing style is utterly captivating! The serious tone of the first two lines pivots in the phrase, "so why not." The mood that follows is somewhat childlike, evoking a sense of adventure and imagination. Isn't that how we should enjoy life? We should take risks, dream big, have fun! With the use of the s/l/s/l/l form, this tanka gives you a heartwarming ending with some dreaming space.

—Christine L. Villa

Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest 2016

8th Contest Selected Haiku Collection


snow lantern
the fading glint
in her eyes


lavender
we pack her clothes
in silence

World Haiku Association, July 2016

144th Monthly Haiga Contest

Sonic Boom, Issue 6, August 2016

Ribbons, Volume 12, Number 2, Spring/Summer 2016

what the hands know


she sits and stares
her palms curling skyward
against her thighs
two weathered coracles
adrift, and filled with rain

disconsolate
she fillets a fishbone sky
into quadrants
the way they divided
her cancer into stages

barn swallows
scissor through thick air
until a cloud
falls through her fingers
in an epiphany

Gnarled Oak, Issue 9, July 2016

Honoured to have this image (without haiku) chosen for the cover of Issue 9!

Daily Haiku, Charlotte Digregorio's Writer's Blog, July 2016

in cupped hands
the harvest moon rests
for a moment


1st Place
Bangor Haiku Group
2015 Autumn Haiku Contest

Failed Haiku - A Journal of English Senryu, Issue 8, August 2016

Cattails, January 2015

spewing lava
a volcano erupts
between us


early frost
a gazing ball reflects
white roses


another egg
in the falcon's nest
rising moon


midwinter
ribbons of aurora
u n f u r l i n g
we tie up the loose ends
of our divergent lives


the goodbye
i never said
at dawn
a bull elk bugles
on the hillside


your fingers
played a symphony
in my hair
when I was a cello
and you were the bow


Tanka Editor's Choice:

A wonderful "short song" (tanka) composed by Debbie Strange from Canada, in which we not only hear the symphony played by two lovers, but where the lyrics of this write present in a musical fashion. I cannot stress enough the importance of line 2, 4, and 5 being of nearly equal length to create a melody like this author has accomplished

—an'ya, cattails principal editor

Cattails, January 2016

dusty sky

refugees make kites

from plastic bags

bagpipes skirl

across the prairie

Dad goes home

midnight sun

will you miss me

when I'm gone

in the hills

cattle lowing between

silences

aftermath

a skunk forages

in fireweed

the dry ache

of a long goodbye

how do we

reach the other side

with the bridge washed out

Tanka Editor's Choice:

This Editor's Choice is by Debbie Strange from Canada, and it demonstrates a songlike rhythm which is pleasing to the ear and desirable in the tanka form. However I chose it not only for the melody but for its contents and its juxtaposition as well. Representative of an aching heart after a long goodbye, we are left to wonder how to reach the other side with the bridge washed out. Metaphoric in its content, leaves a reader to believe in that old saying that "love always finds a way".

—UHTS cattails tanka editor an'ya, USA

Note: This issue also contains a lovely review of Warp and Weft, Tanka Threads by an'ya which may be accessed via the book's title page of this blog.

Red Lights, Vol. 12, Number 2, June 2016

kittiwakes
wheeling the blue beyond
calling, calling
a glimpse of your face
before you slipped away


at cliff's edge
waves roiling below
I stand
eye to eye with gulls
unafraid of flight


on the shore
jellyfish sailors
stranded
my hopes deflating
with these pink balloons

Paper Wasp 22 (2), 2016

the sound of rain
millions of monarchs
taking wing


morning chill
the dark field aglow
with pumpkins


above the marsh
a swarm of gnats spins
dusk into night

NeverEnding Story, July 2016

Translated into Chinese by Chen-ou Liu


empty nest
on the for sale sign
mourning doves


Selected Haiku
2015 Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum Haiku Contest


Chen-ou Liu's comments:

Technically speaking, L1, "empty nest," provides a "scent link" (in Basho's sense of the phrase) to L3, "mourning doves." And the doves' soft, drawn-out calls effectively enhances the tone and mood of the poem.

Hedgerow Poems, Number 85, July 2016

Resident Artist

Poems without images published as follows:

1) brass bell, September 2015

2) Frameless Sky, June 2015

3) brass bell, November 2015

4) Failed Haiku, May 2016

Daily Haiku, Charlotte Digregorio's Writer's Blog, July 2016

rocky ledge
a wolf with the moon
in its mouth


3rd Place
Irish Haiku Society
7th International Haiku Competition 2015

Daily Haiku, Charlotte Digregorio's Writer's Blog, July 2016

stone cairns
a faded cap drifts
downriver


1st Place
HSA 2015 Harold G. Henderson Haiku Contest
Frogpond #38:3, Autumn 2015

Atlas Poetica, Number 25, July 2016

a bird gone quiet
in the tender hollow
of your throat
I miss you more than words
can say I miss you


basking seals
on the breakwater
steam rises
from our sleek bodies
into otherness


an ant
pushing the universe
up this hill
in a water droplet
I find my inner strength


prairie dawn
an exaltation of larks
on barbed wire
ancestral blood pinging
along the gravel road home

World Haiku Review, June 2016

(theme eros and agape)


button moon
we undress each other
in the dark

Zatsuei Haiku of Merit
Vanguard Haiku Category


crescent moon
a scar on the curve
of your belly

Hon. Mention
Vanguard Haiku Category


fireflies
so many reasons
to shine

Hon. Mention
Shintai Haiku Category


mending fences
the scent of sagebrush
on your fingers

Hon. Mention
Shintai Haiku Category

JapanTanka Poets' Society,The 8th International Tanka Festival Competition, 2016

two deep valleys
in a mountain's shadow
village children
pleading at day's end
for one more shaft of light


Certificate of Merit
Conferred by The Tanka Journal
(300 entries)

Shamrock, Number 34, June 2016

shining wind the halt and sway of evergreens


frosted dawn
crows spill across
the horizon