Category: Members

ravens
ah! even darker
at night

Competition judge Matt Hetherington made the following comments:

“… the second prize winner by Simon Hanson resonated with me for its starkness and dark joy. Like many others, it had a deep truthfulness hidden behind apparent simplicity.”

The following haiku by another Australian poet – Helen Taylor – was listed as Commended in the same contest:

hair across her face
she turns
into the wind

The 2015 Creatrix Haiku Prize was selected from Issue 26 to Issue 29 of the Creatrix Poetry and Haiku Journal.

Vanessa won third prize with the following poem:

an open door
evening shadows reach out
to frogsong

Haiku by Simon –

shaping water
and my reverie
river stones

and by Marietta –

my kitchen garden
overrun with orange pumpkins
the weight of summer

gained two out of the six Honourable Mentions conferred.

With both of the top two prize-winners hailing from Romania, and with other Honourable Mentions arising from India, New Zealand and Canada, the Wild Plum Haiku Contest 2015 truly was an international affair.

Given that 105 poets from 27 countries entered the competition, it is all the more noteworthy that Australians filled three out of the top nine placings.

Comments from the judge Gillena Cox regarding Vanessa’s haiku (along with responses to the first two place-getters, plus the text of all six Honourable Mentions) can be accessed at this link:

dry thunder
a freight train crosses
the drought

The work of another Australian haiku poet – Carole Harrison – is listed as Highly Commended (although the text of Carole’s poem has not been posted online).|

Results of the 2015 With Words competition can be viewed through this link:
http://area17.blogspot.com.au

Readers accessing this blog will find – at the top – the names of poets whose haiku have been rated as Highly Commended and Commended.

The prize-winning poems appear further down the page (beneath other visual material).

Competition rules allowed poets to offer pieces which had been previously published – Jan’s winning haiku first appeared in “Windfall 3”.

Jan Dobb’s success here goes hand-in-hand with another haiku of hers having been short-listed recently in the Touchstone Awards.

Having recently won the Heron’s Nest Readers’ Choice Award for 2014, Ron has just become one of three recipients of a Touchstone Distinguished Book Award for 2014, for “The Bone Carver” (published by Snapshot Press) – his new haiku collection that features a wide range of prize-winning poems.

Ron C. Moss also had a haiku shortlisted in the Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems.

Details regarding this set of awards can be viewed at this link: http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/touchstone-awards-for-2014

Another Australian haiku poet – Jan Dobb – likewise received recognition in this same set of awards.

The following haiku by Simon was one of the entries sharing second prize:

left behind
skimming stones
moonlit ripples

The following haiku by Jennifer was one of the entries sharing third prize:

dandelion a wish lingers on the breeze