By Isamu Hashimoto

The headline above is not my own, to my great regret. I took the gem from Ernest Hemingway.

Haiku is said to be an extremely unique literary form which stays aloof from other poetry, but I think it is true that haiku, the tiniest fragments of expression in the world, deal with the same natural or human literary themes like truth, goodness, or beauty. So excerpts from other literary masters can be very helpful in making good haiku.

Hemingway, as far as I know, didn't make any haiku or haiku-like poems, but he knew aesthetic suppression just like that basically adhered to by haijin, or haiku poets. So, using a few of his crisp, laconic prose lines I can easily reconstruct them into haiku.

"You lose it if you talk about it," will surely become the No. 1 haiku memory maxim.

In haiku depiction, the more we talk, the narrower the haiku world gets. In this small form of literature, the bottom line is that we must leave much of the content behind to readers to fill in the whole picture and make the world broader. That's the effect of poetic suppression.

The First Prize for 2008 goes to Ms. Origa.

summer solstice
dawn silently scales
skyscraper windows
-- Origa (Lancing, MI, USA)

In the early summer morning the sun is rising and the city is becoming brighter and brighter. The author is slowly looking down the tall building as the sun crawls down step by step over the window frames. At dawn the sun does not shine so strongly, but she surely acknowledges the advent of summer.

"Scales" is the best choice of words in this scene and furthermore, the second best noticeable point is that if we chose "winter solstice" instead of "summer solstice," the scene would probably become stale because the relationship between the two words, "winter" and "silently" is a bit too close -- what we call "tsukisugi" (being too close) in Japanese. "Tsukisugi" makes the world narrower.

In case of summer, the newly-made juxtaposition of words can duly produce a fresh impression and we can fully appreciate the suppressed magical power of the summer sun shining over the megalopolis and letting us notice the seasonal transition.

The First Prize winner submitted another excellent haiku:

the old woman
sells me a bit of spring
for a small change
-- Origa

"I write most of my haiku in free style with internal rhythm/metre, striving for a short-long-short three-line pattern structure. Haiku, for me, deepen the meaning of things and of beauty in life. Haiku truly open our eyes and our soul to the world," she wrote.

The Second Prizes go to two world-famous haijin: Mr. Wolfgang Beutke and Mr. Philip D. Noble.

frozen harbour
slowly crawls the jetty into
the open sea
-- Wolfgang Beutke (Barum, Germany)

There is only one word telling the chillness of winter, but we feel very cold indeed. His excellent technique of the mere description and the poetical suppression make the winter scene truly impressive using an impersonal noun phrase (frozen harbor) as the subject. This haiku is on the same level with Ms. Origa's.

new moth in the dusk
a map of Australia
on each fore wing
-- Philip D. Noble (Prestwick, Scotland)

Interesting! This outlandish, original idea was so unique, having the proper name unexpectedly put in the second line. At first glance I thought this would be the top haiku, and it is worthy of its prize. However, "in the dusk" is a little changeable: "ugoku" in Japanese.

The next ones are awarded the Third Prizes:

lightning--
she sees me
unmasked
-- Tyrone McDonald (New York City, USA)

moonless night
yellow light from the window
of my ex-wife's house
-- Mark Miller (Shoalhaven Heads, Australia)

meteor shower
I drift
from wish to wish
-- Jacek Margolak (Kielce, Poland)

Mr. Tyrone McDonald depicts frighteningly true beauty in the dazzlingly white flash of lightning -- an excellent minimum piece. Some may judge that this should win First Prize.

People around Mr. Mark Miller may be familiar with this matrimonial separation or not, but his ex-wife does not seem to be so happy after the divorce because of the dim yellow color escaping from the window. The key is "yellow." If you inserted another color, the poetic balance would be broken.

Mr. Jacek Margolak is swaying and feeling the mystery of the universe in the darkness -- the second and third lines are excellent. I have enjoyed the same experience swaying and bathing the Leonids shower in November.