Congratulations to Australian haiku poet Simon Hanson for gaining First Place in the Shiki Monthly Kukai for April 2016, with the following one-liner:
both sides of the border autumn moon
- Simon Hanson
Polling twenty-eight points – two more than the second-place winner – Simon was a clear winner in the Kigo section (where the set theme was migration), in a competition which attracted entries from over a hundred poets, across a range of countries and continents.
One voter’s comment about Simon’s winning haiku read as follows: “Definitely topical in 2016, but also universal in its implications. And certainly about migration, all the more powerfully for its stillness. A very strong haiku.”
Competition organisers advise that they will not be conducting a kukai during the current month of May.
