Winner
 

heartwood
the softness
of a termite

by Ernst J Berry



Second Place



shoes at the door
filling with leaves . . .
the mountain temple

by Micheal McClintock



Third Place


July heat . . .
rinsing peas in water
cold from the well


by Micheal McClintock



Fourth Place


summer rain
I search
the empty classrooms

by Maeve O'Sullivan



Fifth Place

 
stillness
across the lake
a cicada
 
by Ernst J Berry
 

 

playground sounds
arriving in gusts –
smell of new leaves
 

by Harry Bradley

and

 
crash site
his toy truck
up-side-down

by Ernst J Berry


The following haiku also got points:


 
brushing my mouth
with a kiss
a cobweb
 
Bernadette O'Reilly



 
silence
in between healings
she glances at the clock

Maeve O'Sullivan

 

 
april wind
scattered thoughts
blown away
 
Bernadette O'Reilly


 
our loving...
mixing
with the dawn chorus

John McDonald
 

 

windless morning . . .
on the fattened piglet,
the warm June sun
 
Micheal McClintock



 
Perhaps a rabbit
over there on the head-land
basking in the sun

Dermot O'Brien
 


 
starry night . . .
the scent of fresh snow
fallen in the canyon
 
Micheal McClintock



 
This man in the park,
pissing under the moon:
he’s a famous poet!

Gilles Fabre
 





COMMENTS/FEEDBACK


HAIKU #3

heartwood
the softness
of a termite

**

I gave top points for this one as I feel in very few words the reader gets a lot of impressions/emotions.
There is some knid of building up and it ends with an opening/new perspective: termite.

**

This wonderful haiku succeeds in contrasting different textures and consistencies,
 it is detailed and imparts the classic feeling of empathy with little forms of life; all with just 9 syllables.

**

While I gave this poem a 5, I feel there should be more to it. The contrast between "heartwood" and the softness of a termite is nice, intriguing,
but not entirely satisfying: I sense there needs to be another element here, (perhaps seasonal?) to make this contrast
and the relationship between termite and wood  really come alive. Right now, the poem has two elements:

--heartwood
--soft termite

What is the poet really thinking/feeling here? Is there room here for a very gentle lyrical presence? --A hint about the poet's thoughts/feelings?
This is not unheard of, either in classical haiku or many fine modern haiku in English. 
Perhaps more about the "heartwood" --- where is it? What is it a part of?  What is the setting of this poem?

**

Concise and striking image, with resonance - heart(soft?)/heartwood (hard) / termite (soft, but eats away even the hardest wood).

---------------------------


HAIKU #14

summer rain
I search
the empty classrooms


nice compact story in 10 syls - well controlled, open-ended, layered,  breaks fewest 'rules'.

---------------------------


HAIKU # 17
 
shoes at the door
filling with leaves . . .
the mountain temple
 

i like this haiku because i am brought into the experience without comments or interpretation.
I can see the shoes at the door......imagine the shoeless people kneeling inside....sense outside from the leaves,
the autumn season, the trees and the solitude and wildness of the mountain...
it brings me to a place I have never been, and helps me to experience it vividly.

---------------------------

HAIKU #21

crash site
his toy truck
up-side-down

because of its visual impact and the sheer simplicity of the up-side-down truck.It is also a reminder of  the beauty of a childs imagination.

---------------------------

HAIKU #31
 
July heat . . .
rinsing peas in water
cold from the well
 
For me, this haiku succeeds totally in doing what really good haiku do: with but the sparsest of brushstrokes, these lines create a vivid image
which evokes a deep emotional response. Step by layered step, we witness a dénouement which recreates in the reader's mind the poet's experience.
The first line centres us immediately in high summer, setting out the all-encompassing heat. Onto the second line, and we zoom right in to the contrasting imagery: from the dry oppressive heat to peas running in water; from the amorphous to the precise, the concrete; from the ubiquitous atmosphere to the tiny there-ness of peas; from the colourless to emerald green solidity. Then onto that climactic third line, piling on another layer of experience, telling us of further contrast in the coldness of the water, until finally we are led to the source of this experience, where the water issues from the depths of the earth itself.
The poet, and the readers along with him/her, find themselves in the very crucible of these phenomena: the heat descending from the sun,
 the water rising from within the planet, and by symbiosis of these two forces the miracle of life, both of vegetation whereby we find food, and of sentient life, whereby we experience and strive to comprehend and to philosophise.
This haiku is truly masterful in saying so much, while making it look so simple.

**

I gave top marks to this haiku for a few reasons: I like the contrast between the hot weather and the cold water,
also that between the "green-ness" of the peas and the clarity of the water. Line three comes as something of a surprise,
which was also a factor. A *simple* task leading to a *simple* moment leading to a *simple* haiku. Simple in the best possible sense!




SOME REVIEWS



#2.
 
garden invasion -
attacking the young birds
greedy starlings.

I think more can be read into it like the weak and vunerable among humanity being attacked in one way or another.
The invasion of privacy etc that a victim of crime feels, maybe the author did not intend this, I could be reading
to much into the haiku. I feel the first line is very strong, I love this haiku, it was a tie for me between no 21,

crash site
his toy truck
up-side-down

which won because of simplicity as stated.

**

#6
blue bottles buzzing
at the back door
announcing summer.

I think this haiku has good potential, with a strong image - and sound - being presented in the first two lines.
However, the third line is not "working" hard enough in the haiku for my money. As far as I know, bluebottles only (or mostly)
occur in the summer, so "announcing summer" is a little redundant.

I'd like to know what else was going on: What kind of door was it, for instance? Were there any other sights/sounds or smells in that moment?
What was going on inside? Was a meal being prepared, perhaps, or even a cup of tea or coffee.
Maybe some chilled white wine was being poured...you get my drift. I'm not going to attempt a rewrite
as only the author can provide an alternative line 3, but I look forward to perhaps reading it again somewhere in a new incarnation!

**

#12
raindrops so heavy
weighing down
the geranium

This one reminds me of a Basho haiku (I think) with snow flakes weighing down/bending daffodil leaves...
But the issue for me is "so heavy" as it is not needed. "weighing down" involves the wight of the drops...

Another solution could be

heavy raindrops
on the geranium

and another element... Then it would be up to the reader to make up the missing part (i.e. the flower is bending...)

But I think it may be less good.

**

#25:
mica glitters
in the broken stones
light fills the grave

I quite liked this image, and the last line is strong on its own. But, I found it a bit of a leap between light glistening in the stones and light filling the grave,
I feel the light might be doing something else more interesting. The 'the' in the second line seems superfluous.

**

#26:
starlings shit and sing
on the black town cathedral -
Spring morning sunshine
 

There is some very nice imagery in this haiku, which draws me to it. The presentation together of the birds' irreverent (shitting)
and appropriate (singing) behaviour on the sacred building is intriguing. But there are also a few snags which I think stand as obstacles to the poem's complete success. Though starlings are common year-round here, they are most striking when they swarm in the autumn, and so would tend to be associated with the latter season in haiku. While I have no objection to using natural phenomena 'out-of-season' in haiku (so long as clarity is maintained), the order of presentation here is such that until the last line the reader is likely to assume we are witnessing one of those enormous October flocks, and the sudden realisation at the very end that this is not so comes as something of an anticlimax. There is also considerably more information here than we need: 'town cathedral'? As opposed to what, 'village cathedral'?! I puzzled over this for a minute till I counted the syllables and found, lo and behold, 5-7-5. To me, this exemplifies the single strongest reason not to write strict-form. While I have read solid, terse haiku written to this form, they are unfortunately a rare exception. Far more common is the rather self-evident struggle of the poet to fill the form. Taking the same imagery, and addressing the points above, I would like to have read something along the lines of:
 
spring morning—
starlings on the cathedral
shit and sing

**

#27
starry night . . .
the scent of fresh snow
fallen in the canyon
 
I like this haiku. I would leave out the '.... ' - what do they add? and change fallen to 'falling in the canyon' to preserve the present moment.
Maybe I am partial to it because I have just been on a walking and driving tour of the canyons of the american southwest.
There is the sense of something natural, silent, and pure. again, the snow gives us the season.
 
I could comment on all of them.... but i won't. in general, i rejected haiku that used metaphor 'birdlike',
abstractions i couldn't sense [garden invasion], connections i couldnt see [sandbags and milk jugs] etc......

**

# 29:
This man in the park,
pissing under the moon:
he’s a famous poet!

a bit wordy but has classical aspects - scans well - gets 1 thinking