The Award

The Haiku Foundation announces the creation of the Touchstone Awards Series, beginning with the Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards for 2010. The Touchstone Awards Series is a family of awards designed to recognize and reward excellence in the field of haiku.

The Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards will be bestowed annually on published collections of poems, or works of scholarship that present a noteworthy contribution to English-language haiku in the estimation of a distinguished panel of poets, editors and scholars. Any English-language book or other production that is of or about haiku (and related forms) is eligible for the Award. The 2010 Award is open to books published between October 1, 2009 and September 30, 2010. Each author of an award-winning book will receive an engraved stone with their name and title of their book on it, emblematic of his or her contribution to the foundations of English-language haiku.

The Panel

The panel for our inaugural awards consists of Charles C. Trumbull, editor of Modern Haiku; Ruth Yarrow, haiku poet, judge, teacher for 35 years; Lorin Ford, haiku editor for Notes From the Gean; Professor Philip Rowland, editor of Noon: Journal of the Short Poem; and Barbara Louise Ungar, winner of the Gival Press Poetry Prize in 2006.

What Books Are Eligible?

Any individual or publisher whose book has been published within the given time frame may submit their work for consideration. There is no reading fee. If there is some question about your book’s eligibility, please contact the Foundation at the address below for clarification.

How to Submit

To qualify for the Touchstone Distinguished Books Award, each poet must initially submit two copies of the book nominated no later that October 15, 2010 (postmark). One copy will be assigned to one of the panelists, the other will become a permanent inclusion in The Haiku Foundation’s permanent hard copy library. Each submitter will be recognized as a donor to the Foundation and cited on the Donation Page of the website. Should your submission be recommended for the short list, we will at that time request four additional copies so the entire panel may consider it. Short list entries and award winners will be cited on The Haiku Foundation website. Nominated volumes should be sent to:

The Haiku Foundation
Touchstone Distinguished Books Award
PO Box 2461
Winchester VA
22604-1661 USA

Enquiries may be directed to this address, or to web.admin@thehaikufoundation.org.

Here is an update regarding additions to the Haiku Registry since last report. Each poet’s page is accessible by last name: simply click on that initial in the search index on the opening page. To submit your own information, click the appropriate link on the Registry’s opening page.

NEW TO THE HAIKU REGISTRY: David Boyer, David Caruso, Marcyn Del Clements, Marili Deandrea, Ruth Franke, and Mary Stevens.  In addition, several poets have added new books or other updated information. The sad news of the deaths of Vladimir Devide and Zdravko Kurnik is included on their memorial pages.

Our Event Calendars have been updated—and some deadlines are fast approaching. These calendars are designed to help haiku poets keep track of journal submission and contest entry deadlines, They are available in either pdf or html versions. The main document has publications and contests; the other is a contests-only version. They can be used as checklists as well as reminders. Many thanks to those who have sent information to help us keep the information current and correct. Please continue to send new information, corrections, and updates–including links to contest results–to:  calendar/at/thehaikufoundation.org (replacing /at/ with @).

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Carmen Sterba: Does the fact that you read your early haiku in coffee houses cause you to be more dramatic in your readings? Would you like to see haiku read more often with jazz? Or even hip hop?
 
Cor van den Heuvel: I’m sure the way I read my work, including my haibun and haiku, has been influenced by my early experience in coffee houses. I think the haiku spirit as I usually try to follow it, with the emphasis on simplicity, can be complemented with many of the sounds and rhythms of jazz. It could be used in the period of silence between two haiku or after a passage of prose to introduce a following haiku. I don’t think hip hop would work for me.
 
C.S.: In understanding the roots of the haiku movement in North America, I hope to include both those who see haiku as poetry and those who see it as a Zen poem or something in between. Since 1999, when the last edition of The Haiku Anthology came out, the numbers of haiku poets have exploded through online groups, online journals, and instant news through blogs. In New York, you had such a tight knit group to meet with and write with from 1971. Do you have any advice for those whose contacts are only through the Internet?
 
C.V.: Only that examining how the poem means word for word and how it is structured on the page is only a beginning to finding out if it works. Sometimes the poet sees in the words what he wants to see, even if it is not really present in the poem. Getting others’ reactions is very important to finding out if the poem is really suggesting what the poet wants it to suggest. I think it is much easier to find this out in direct face to face contact then going through the web. Not only do you get a more immediate verbal reaction, you also get clues from facial reactions and other body language.
 
C.S.: I would be interested in how you interpret your one word haiku, “tundra”. Or is that left to the reader?
 
C.V.:  It is what it is: “a level or undulating plain characteristic of arctic or subarctic regions.” The important things are to see it alone in the mind or in the middle of an otherwise blank page and to color it with a season, preferably spring when it is blowing forever with grasses, flowers, birds (with their nests and eggs), and insects; or in winter when it is covered with endless drifted snow. To see the vastness of it spreading out from the word across the page and across the world. And to hear the sound of it. The word.
 
C.S.: May I have your permission to publish the following four haiku?
 
C.V.: Yes.
 
sun
on the saddle-bags
snow in the mountains
 
[Sun in Skull, 1961 Chant Press]
 
summer afternoon
the long fly ball to center field
takes its time
 
[Play Ball, 1999 Red Moon Press]
 
a tidepool
in a clam shell
the evening sunlight
 
[Dark, 1982 Chant Press]
 
after the speeches
the honored dead return
to their silence
 
[A Boy’s Seasons, 2010]
(To be published this year by Single Island Press; Originally serialized in Modern Haiku in 1993)

Thanks to Cor van den Heuvel for his generous interview!

It is my hope that Essences will become fluid with new voices and continue in a way that will encourage new research into English-language haiku history. To make this happen, I have already chosen my successor for 2011 from another country.

Meanwhile, I will continue with the Sixties and Seventies explosion of journals, and haiku organizations in North America, while highlighting some of the English-language haiku masters. I hope that other poets will join in with anecdotes about these times.

Which haiku poet would you like to interview if you had the chance? What are some of the interviews or articles that you read in haiku print journals or internet journals that have been most valuable in your personal haiku journey?

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Essences began as a column written by Carmen Sterba in the North American Post in Seattle, WA, a bilingual newspaper in Japanese and English. Its purpose is to go back to the roots of the “haiku movement” in North America: the major poets, the individual styles of haiku, the books, the journals and conferences as they evolved from the sixties and seventies onwards. This will be a short version, so feel free to add information and comments as we go along.

One of the first things I learned about haiku is that each poem must contain a seasonal word. Sounded easy enough. I assumed that this was open to interpretation and that I could pick words that evoked different seasons for me.

As I studied further, I ran across the term “kigo.” Kigo is a Japanese seasonal word. These are set in stone. Students of haiku in Japan study a kigo dictionary, called a “saijiki,” to learn which words represent which seasons.

As I continued to explore this area I saw that some haiku poets branched from the kigo concept and sought seasonal words appropriate for their area. In a different discussion on Young Leaf #2 (here on troutswirl), I was intrigued by how seasonal words could vary depending on where you live in this world.

Lorin Ford pointed out that July is winter in Australia. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t considered that before. Since I live in Florida, I never thought of it as anything but a summer word (a very hot, humid, sticky seasonal word).

I see there is a debate between the traditional kigo approach and the seasonal word concept (which is a bit more open to interpretation). I plan to study both approaches more and learn from each.

I do have trouble sometimes finding an appropriate kigo or seasonal word for my haiku. I know it isn’t a haiku without one.

I have been working on two haiku that have stumped me. For me “sandy” speaks of summer, but I know it isn’t a kigo. Does it work as a seasonal word?

returning—
my sandy footprints erased
webbed ones remain

Then the other has been with me for a while. I love going to the beach and watching the sun touch the horizon. It’s a special moment for me. It is also a little sad when the moment is gone and the sun has set.

red sun touches
distant aqua line—
deflating

So, for me both haiku speak of summer, but I suspect neither has a seasonal word. How does one “insert” a seasonal word without losing the poetry? I could make Line 1 of the second haiku: “red summer sun touches.” Or perhaps, “august sun touches,” which might infer that summer vacation is over as well. I prefer the original, but suspect it isn’t a haiku.

Can you help me sort this out?

What do you do when you write a haiku, which doesn’t contain a seasonal word?

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Quicksilver is a column on troutswirl, the blog for The Haiku Foundation, devoted to showcasing the questions, ideas, and evolution of a beginner to the art of haiku, Laura Sherman. Each installment will feature some of Laura’s new work as well as her ideas and thought-processes concerning them. It is hoped that readers will respond with reactions, ideas, and advice on her work and provide feedback on how she might develop and improve her craft.