Langhorne Creek Writers’ Festival: Young people’s Haiku Competition 2015
Bindii Japanese Genres Poetry Group sponsored the four prizes awarded in this first year of the haiku competition. Ten schools from around South Australia participated. Fourteen teachers used the curriculum material provided by Bindii to the Langhorne Creek Festival organizers to teach haiku.
With an average class size of thirty, around 420 students were taught haiku by the Langhorne Creek Writers’ Festival. In each school the three best haiku from each grade category were entered. There were 26 entries. In addition to the four First Prize Winners, there were 10 commended poems.
In their report the judges (Lynette Arden and Lee Bentley from Bindii) commented: ‘the winning haiku in each of the categories were chosen because they have strong clear images with emotional impact and good haiku structure with two distinct parts to each poem. Among the other entries it was pleasing to see that the students have really looked at using concrete imagery in their haiku.’
At the award presentation, the winners were recognized with a certificate, the First Prize Winners won $50 and a basket of books for their school library.
All sixteen participating schools attended the Literacy Day at Langhorne Creek School on 14 September. Over 70 students attended.
http://haiku-bindii.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/langhorne-creek-writers-festival-young.html
AUGUST 22, 2011
Salisbury Writers Festival 2011 Haiga Results
Haiga results from Steve Davidson, Salisbury council arts officer.
Congratulations to the following:
Highly commended:
Sheree Furtak Ellis Haiga of the north
Lilliana Rose A moments rest
Sarah Reece After the storm
3rd Prize: Barbara Taylor Gingko window
2nd Prize: Margaret Rawlinson Breeze
1st Prize: Belinda Broughton Sunday
JUNE 09, 2010
Haiku/Haibun Workshop with Martina Taeker
Report on Haiku/Haibun Workshop given by Martina Taeker 5 June 2010
Sixteen people attended the haiku/haibun workshop organized by Friendly St Poets at the Box Factory in Adelaide on 5 June.
Martina Taeker gave a well devised and very clear presentation to help those starting to write both haiku and haibun, with plenty of examples to illustrate her points.
Some of the points she made first were to dispel the myth that haiku should be written in the 5/7/5 form in English. Martina pointed out the differences in English language sound syllables and Japanese written onji, which make seventeen English syllables appear far too long when compared with a Japanese haiku.
Other points she stressed were the importance of content in the Japanese poetry form and that haiku were objective and nature based. The reader must work to interpret the haiku. The reader must make the connections rather than have the poet spell them out. Such a short poetry form can contain a lot of depth and subtlety. She also stressed the importance of Australian poets using their own landscape in writing haiku, rather than imitating the language and imagery of Japanese poets.
Martina then touched on guidelines regarding seasonal references, punctuation, capitalization, titles and the importance of using concrete imagery from all the senses in haiku. She noted that the shape of the haiku on the page could enhance the effect of the poem: three, one, two and more rarely four lines being the most popular arrangements in English. She discussed the presence of people in haiku poetry and the senryu form.
A practice session in writing haiku followed this discussion, with Martina offering individual advice to participants.
Following a break for a sumptuous afternoon tea provided by Friendly St Poets, Martina presented information on haibun, again providing a number of examples to demonstrate the points she was making. Again, she emphasised the importance of imagery and urged those attempting haibun to focus on not too large a topic and to leave out extraneous detail. She also stressed the importance of the haiku in haibun.
This session was valuable not only to newcomers to the form, but as a reminder to those of us with more experience, of the beauty of a well expressed haiku or haibun.
Lynette Arden
Australian Haiku Society 