The GPS Haiku Competition 2023 Results.
1st Place £150 Tony Williams
2nd Place £75 Fraser Brown
3rd Place £25 Nick T
Highly Commended
Debbie Strange
Marietta McGregor
Commended
Nick T
Tony Williams
Chen ou Liu
Merit
Edward Cody Huddleston (2)
Debbie Strange
Fraser Brown
Jane Spray
Jay Friedenberg (2)
Juliet Wilson
Marietta McGregor
Cristian Matei
Congratulations to the above poets who will be published in Edition 13 of Steel Jackdaw Magazine.
The total entries for the 2023 competition, run by the Gloucestershire Poetry Society, were 295 haiku.
The Longlist consisted of 70 haiku, all of which are eligible for the 2024 Haiku Anthology, which will be published later this year.
Photo Credit: Karen Hoy
Using the Tsugi approach (The Next Lines)
Judge’s haiku contest report & commentaries
by Alan Summers
295 haiku were submitted, and it’s always hard, or should be, to reduce that to just a handful of placed poems. When I select haiku for my own journal, or an anthology, or contest, I wear many hats in order to see the haiku (and other haikai verses) from various angles. My hats will always begin with being “an enthusiastic reader," reaching back to when I first started 30 years ago. Then in tandem, there is the professional side, aligned with the criteria so that I avoid falling into the trap of narrowed choices, personal tastes, and any potential ‘outdated’ definitions of a haiku.
A full judge’s report will be added below once Steel Jackdaw 13 is published, with Alan’s analysis of the winning haiku.
Let’s jump in! An insight into the judging process.
First of all, are we prepared to look into “the eye of the haiku” & not just 'around it’?
A question for both the author, and the “unknown reader," and not just myself.
Let’s zero into at one (of many) aspects to haiku that I can look for at times:
This is whether the opening line(s) in haiku can be akin to opening scenes in movies.
For instance, the Frank Capra movie 'It's A Wonderful Life' opens with a bell tolling at night, it’s snowing fiercely, the stars are bright and hard, if and when you see them, plus elements of society feel particularly human and vulnerable.
The scene contains:
SOUND; TIME (day or night/season); and MOVEMENT
①
I look for what is, or might be, the trigger for myself to simply feel included as a reader.
②
I look to see if we have E X P A N S E:
A wide continuous area of “something.”
e.g.
the wooded expanse or within that expanse, of forest
a steaming blacktop highway (distant view, or travelling along it)
white tips of a rushing river, rapids, or a volatile sea
a vista of sky suspended over meadows/wheatfields/prairies/towns or cities etc…
③
Do we have something smaller for contrast.
④
Am I pulled into whatever physical or psychological scene, small or large, that’s set up.
⑤
The next lines:
• How does each ‘next line’ connect and reconnect with each other?
• How do they interact and react with both each other, and then with us?
⑥
Does the opener line and the closer line either reflect, clash, enlarge, engage
or simply repeat each other like an infinity mirror.
⑦
THE RE-READABILITY FACTOR
Is there still more to the haiku that makes us feel enough to absorb something new
and different, each time we revisit it.
Are we prepared to look into that “eye of the haiku.” and engage,
and not just speed read / ‘skirt around it’ and move on.
Alan Summers
Judge, Gloucestershire Poetry Society Haiku Competition 2023