Recently DucK&dASh p0etry announced the results of their first Anti Haiku Competition, open to residents of Western Australia. The competition, which closed on 5th January 2025, received 76 entries from 19 poets. In keeping with the competition title, submissions that experimented beyond traditional or contemporary haiku form were encouraged. The competition was aimed at lovers of haiku who would embrace the challenge, as well as poets who had never written anything haiku before.
DucK&dASh p0etry noted that there have been many definitions and aesthetics of haiku over the centuries and participants were free to interpret and subvert any and all expectations. The ‘anti haiku’ were to be 1-6 lines long, not exceeding a total of 40 counts both syllables and punctuation, and image poems were also accepted.
Judge Tineke van der Eecken commented: ‘I loved the range of Anti-Haiku submissions, and the imaginative array of ways the poets countered the ancient form of haiku.’ Winner of first place was Kaya Ortiz, with runners-up John Beeson and Coral Carter. Tineke ‘read and re-read and considered each poem for the way it countered form, for what it did not do while still leaving an essence of haiku: the image that stayed, a feeling that lingered after turning the page.’
More details, including the winning poems and others shared on social media, can be found on the DucK&dASh p0etry Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/duckanddashpoetry
Submitted by Leonard James, DucK&dASh p0etry.
Australian Haiku Society 