Vladimir DevidĂŠ Haiku Award 2015
VLADIMIR DEVIDÉ HAIKU AWARD 2015
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IAFOR PUBLICATIONS Executive Editor: Dr. Joseph Haldane Published by The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan IAFOR Publications, Sakae 1-16-26 – 201, Naka Ward, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan 460-0008 ISBN: 978-4-907131-03-6 Designed by Thaddeus Pope Printed in Japan, 2015
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VLADIMIR DEVIDÉ HAIKU AWARD 2015 The IAFOR Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award was founded by Dr. Drago Štambuk, at the time Croatian Ambassador to Japan, and Dr. Joseph Haldane, President of IAFOR, and named in tribute to Vladimir Devidé’s vision and passion for haiku. The award is based on literary merit, regardless of whether written in the traditional or modern style. As such, it aims to transcend haiku divisions in the unifying spirit of Vladimir Devidé. The Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award is proudly organised by The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) as part of The Asian Conference on Literature and Librarianship (LibrAsia). Dr. A. Robert Lee, internationally recognized critic, author and poet, and LibrAsia2015 Keynote Speaker, announced the winners of the 5th Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award during the Asian Conference on Literature and Librarianship 2015 in Osaka, Japan.
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FOREWORD The Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award is now in its fifth year, and I am very proud to see that this year’s event grew to four hundred submissions from fifty-four countries, attesting to the international popularity of this award, as well as the enduring appeal of haiku. A Japanese organization in origin, the International Academic Forum now hosts more than forty events every year over three continents, and is a keen supporter and promoter of the Arts, with international competitions in film, photography and literature. Haiku is a quintessentially Japanese form of poetry, and has become one of the country’s greatest gifts to the world as it has been adopted and adapted internationally, so now there are many thousands of poets writing in myriad countries and languages. One such country is Croatia, where haiku has a large following, and happens to be the country of both Vladimir Devidé, in whose honour the award 7
is named, and Drago Štambuk, the founding judge of the competition, as well as Boris Nazansky, this year’s Grand Prize Winner. Nazansky’s poem is a wonderful example of the haunting, suggestive, and minimalist beauty of haiku, and attests to the extremely high standard of entries to this award as it continues to grow in reach and prestige. I am sure that you will be impressed by the diversity and range of poems selected this year by Dr. Štambuk, which take the reader on an emotional roller coaster through their sparse verse. Hold on for the ride! Dr. Joseph Haldane Nagoya, April 2015
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IAFOR would like to thank His Excellency Dr. Drago Ĺ tambuk, founding judge of the Vladimir DevidĂŠ Haiku Award and critic and poet Dr. A. Robert Lee, LibrAsia2015 Keynote Speaker, who announced the winning entries. We would also like to thank the Haiku International Association for their continued support of the event, particularly its President, Dr. Akito Arima, as well as Hana Fujimoto and Emiko Miyashita, both members of the Haiku International Association Board of Councillors and Featured Haiku Workshop Presenters at LibrAsia2015.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 二 Vladimir Devidé
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三 Drago Štambuk
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四 Grand Prize
31
五 Runner Up
35
六 Commended
55
七 Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award 2016
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VLADIMIR DEVIDÉ Despite a successful international academic career as a renowned mathematician, with professorships in Australia and the US, as well as his native Croatia at the University of Zagreb, it is primarily as a Japanologist and haiku poet that Vladimir Devidé is now remembered. Devidé was not only one of the world’s most celebrated haiku poets, but a tireless promoter of Japanese culture. If Croatia is now considered a Haiku “superpower”, with more poets practicing the art per capita than any other nation, it is largely thanks to his efforts. A full member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Vladimir Devidé has won a number of awards and honours, including the Le Prix CIDALC (1977), the Prize of the City of Zagreb (1982), and for his work as a promoter of Japanese culture, the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure (1983). Vladimir Devidé died in August 2010.
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DR. DRAGO ŠTAMBUK His Excellency Dr. Drago Štambuk is the Croatian Ambassador to Brazil, a post he took up in early 2011, after five years as Ambassador to Japan and the Republic of Korea. Dr. Štambuk is a widely published and acclaimed poet, and is now recognized as one of Croatia’s most distinguished men of letters. His writing career began in 1973 and has grown to include more than 40 collections of poetry in Croatian, English, French and Spanish, and his work has been included in all relevant anthologies of Croatian contemporary poetry. The ambassador has received numerous literary awards in his native country and abroad, and was the first recipient of Dragutin Tadijanovic Award established in 2008 by the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is also a founder and director of the All-Croatian Poetry Festival on the Island of Brač, founded in 1991. As well as his writing, Dr. Štambuk has had two separate careers as both a medical doctor and 23
a diplomat. A graduate of Zagreb University’s Medical School (1974), he went on to specialize in internal medicine, gastroenterology and hepatology at the Clinical Medical Center in Zagreb, before moving to London in 1983 to continue his medical career at both the Royal Free Hospital and St Stephen’s. Following the independence of Croatia in 1991, he became a diplomat, and has served as the Croatian ambassador to various countries, including India and Egypt, and from 2005 was named as Croatia’s representative in Tokyo. His brief was expanded to include the Republic of Korea in 2006. The ambassador was a Fellow at Harvard University from 2001 to 2002. He was appointed to the IAFOR International Advisory Board in 2010 as the conference chair for the first Asian Conference on Literature and Librarianship 2011, and instituted the Vladimir Devidé Haiku award as a tribute to Devidé, who had died earlier in 2010, serving as the judge since 2011.
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VLADIMIR DEVIDÉ HAIKU AWARD SELECTED HAIKU 2015
Grand Prize
pregnancy shape of the dark side of the crescent moon
Boris Nazansky, Croatia
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Runner Up
spring sky a seagull enters our selfie
Rosa Clement, Brazil
35
Runner Up
evening lull a seaside cave exhaling butterflies
Anthony Kudryavitsky, Ireland
37
Runner Up
first glimpse of her mastectomy bra winter rose
Chen-ou Liu, Canada
39
Runner Up
silence‌ leaves are falling all by themselves
Dubravko Korbus, Croatia
41
Runner Up
the snow-spinning wind I dream of only big trees in my prison yard
Alan Summers, UK
43
Runner Up
after the sunset a white chrysanthemum lights quite alone
Vasile Moldovan, Romania
45
Runner Up
summer night‌ a worm bites through the silence in a fallen acorn
Milan Dragović, Serbia
47
Runner Up
the shadow of the fish hides in the shadow of a leaf
Jim Kacian, USA
49
Runner Up
shining in a drop of dew all His love
Nikola Ä?uretić, Croatia
51
Commended
rustling pages – in the library the echo of the past forests
Eduard Tara, Romania
55
Commended
spring breeze how the broken willow still yearns
Timothy Russell, USA
57
Commended
news of war the red welt of a tick bite slowly spreads
Vanessa Proctor, Australia
59
Commended
a shirt hung on the birch tree branch – a man in its shadow
Dušan Mijajlović Adski, Serbia
61
Commended
old temple reflected on its floor red maple leaves
Yukiko Yamada, Japan
63
Commended
how his breath catches when I undress – double mastectomy
Susan Burch, USA
65
Commended
the homeless man tides up his new residence approaching storm
Emmanuel Kalusian, Nigeria
67
Commended
roadside poppies the prostitute is knitting a crown
Detelina Tiholova, Bulgaria
69
Commended
All Souls’ Day. In an empty grave bugs’ home.
Sergio Francisco Pichorim, Brazil
71
Commended
atrophied right hand poetry loves frailty so write with what’s left
Fareed Ben-Youssef, USA
73
Commended
evening visitor – a leaf steps inside on a gummed shoe
Darrell Lindsey, USA
75
Commended
picture on the wall man’s eyes look at me unblinking
Ĺ tefanija Ludvig, Croatia
77
Commended
between there and here the essence of a snowflake
Julie Warther, USA
79
Commended
so many shooting stars – and yet the sky remains in its place
Iulian Ciupitu, Romania
81
Commended
old beachcomber one eye on the horizon
Scott Mason, USA
83
Commended
Uranium doses. How can a flower endure all that radiation?
Raad Kareem Abd-Aun, Iraq
85
Commended
Out of the freezer into the earth – my dead cat.
Daniel Gahnertz, Italy
87
Commended
elderly nun absently picks a flower …he loves me not
Jeanne Jorgensen, Canada
89
Commended
The most difficult of all that I experienced: silence of God.
Svetomir Ä?urbabić, Serbia
91
Commended
aerospace museum the ascending moon looks in lunar rover’s hall
Vitali Khomin, Ukraine
93
Commended
summer’s end the taste of lettuce gone to seed
Seren Fargo, USA
95
Commended
braid the smell of her hair lingers on my palms
Margolak Jacek, Poland
97
Commended
shifting tides she now sings her mother’s lullaby
Christine L. Villa, USA
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VLADIMIR DEVIDÉ HAIKU AWARD 2016 The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) will begin accepting submissions for the 6th Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award on June 1st, 2015. If you would like to enter the award, please visit iafor.org/haiku for rules and entry procedures. The Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award was created to celebrate classical and modern haiku, both those poems that follow the traditional form and those that play with it. Though traditionally Japanese, haiku has become a global art form. In keeping with IAFOR’s international scope, we welcome haiku submissions from around the world. Further information on the award, including previous winning submissions, can be found by scanning the following QR code with a mobile phone, or by visiting iafor.org/haiku.
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Cover Image Hydrangea and Swallow, from the series Large Flowers, c. 1833-1834. Artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)
www.iafor.org
Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award 2015 The Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award was founded as a tribute to Vladimir Devidé’s vision and passion for haiku. The Award is based on literary merit, regardless of whether written in the traditional or modern style, and is proudly organised by The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) as part of The Asian Conference on Literature and Librarianship (LibrAsia). IAFOR Publications / Japan
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