huddled in a circle
the heat of
mortar fire

Rachel Cook

my sleepless nights
are her dangerous days
same stars

Rachel Cook

half a world away
she whispers my name
I jolt awake

Rachel Cook

the twin feels
her sleeping sister's fear
a war away

Corinne Cullina

These haiku definitely compliment each other because they almost seem to fill in the gaps for each other. The first haiku gives an impression that it could be a man missing his wife who is traveling. However, the second haiku explains who is gone and why they are gone: a twin sister is off to help out with the war. They are excellent compliments. Faith J. Martin

These two haiku go together quite well, but even in a pair stand out as individuals. This is a great quality – they blend without losing shape. The first is nonspecific – it could be a sister, a daughter, a friend, or a lover. Regardless of who it is, they have a very strong connection with the speaker, even halfway across the earth. The second is much more specific – it references the special bond all twins seem to have. These are great haiku. Sarah Corso

This choice of favorite pair was a lot easier, because I was confused by a lot of the submissions. I know it must have been because I was unable to attend the book lecture and therefore, can not relate to these seemingly irrelevant, and unrelated haiku that are suppose to be about war. However, I would have chosen this pair even without the kukai subject matter being known, because of the little sparks of “magic” in these. It is a sixth sense that propels these sisters, and even a greater connection-these twins, to awake in the middle of the night feeling for each other. I like that one haiku was clearly about a sister back in the states worrying about her twin who is in the middle of a war, while the other seemed to mirror her as a sister who is trying to get a good nights rest in Iraq, but because her sister is so worried about her feels compelled to speak the name of the one she cannot see. The word “away” is also used in both and provides a firm relationship between the two that draws readers in and gives more credibility to it’s matching from two unknown authors. Traci Rapp

I like this pair of haiku because they really give the feeling of being a twin. These haiku make being a twin come to life. Although I am not a twin I do know some things before they happen and it would be interesting to do this with someone instead of alone. The composition of both haiku are wonderful. Alisha Goebel

my sleepless nights
are her dangerous days
same stars

half a world away
she whispers my name
I jolt awake

top quarter champion =

half a world away
she whispers my name
I jolt awake
 

top half champion =

half a world away
she whispers my name
I jolt awake

bottom quarter champion =

my drunken friend
provides his checklist of sorrows
to the fireflies
 

my drunken friend
provides his checklist of sorrows
to the fireflies

war torn country
just a simple glimpse
from our TV dinner

that Iraqi's hand
reaching to shake mine
or make obscene gestures?

Melanie McLay

my drunken friend
provides his checklist of sorrows
to the fireflies

Pat Steadman

alone
in the garden
single bloom

Ryne Inman

war torn country
just a simple glimpse
from our TV dinner

Corinne Cullina

Both of the haiku in this match give me a sense of loneliness. In a way, they give me the feeling of being out of touch with what’s going on in the real world, and being caught up in their own world. In the haiku about the single bloom in the garden, I like how the single bloom could be a reference to more than one thing. It might be a person who’s alone in their garden, and that’s the place they can really be themselves and “bloom.” On the other hand, it could simple be a flower… maybe the first one of the season to bloom. Then again, maybe it’s the only bloom because all of the other ones died for some reason. The third line of the second haiku really makes it for me. I can picture a parent and child sitting in a dimly lit living room with their TV dinner and a couple of cokes. They’re just flipping through the channels and one that they flip through is some breaking news about the war. The parent flips on, incredibly unfazed, while the child wonders about what he has just got a glimpse of. I think this haiku does a good job of portraying the feeling that “yeah, there’s a war, but it’s not in our country so I don’t need to worry about it.” Liz Ciaccio

These two weren’t really similar, but I got a sense of innocence in both of them. In the first one, the simplicity of it made me feel innocence. It’s just someone sitting alone in a garden staring a single bloom. Since there is only one bloom, it must be one of the first and so it probably just bloomed, adding to the innocence theme. I like the second one a lot because it describes so much of America. We sit at home and watch a war on TV, barely glimpsing up from our everyday routine to notice. There’s a real innocence or naïve sense to that. Both are very simple, but carry deeper messages, especially the war one. There’s more to the world than our little corners of America. Rachel Cook

top half champion =

half a world away
she whispers my name
I jolt awake

champion =

summer gust
stirring the ashes
of our past

bottom half champion =

summer gust
stirring the ashes
of our past

 

without meaning to
taming the spirit
school bell buzzes

Traci Rapp

intellect on rye
threatening to leave
the country

Allison Lingren

I’ll slip through your fingers
and leave my mark
I’m water that burns

Jamie Devitt

summer gust
stirring the ashes
of our past

Rachel Cook

Although both of these, like the examples above, relate to the same theme, the second achieves it in a more effective style. In the first I appreciate the fact that they made use of literary devices like comparing themselves to burning water. I suppose that is how they leave their mark. I find that the mark left is much more like ashes because relationships burn hot (not just romantic in the physical sense, but like platonic friends who hang out all the time and then don’t see each other as much because of what-have-you). I find that when you next encounter the person with whom has left a mark, a lot of the old habits and whatnot rise again like stirring ashes. With this I believe the second has a more accurate image than the burning water. Adam Stefo

Burning is an apt description of some memories. We wish we could change them, whether they are major (saving a relationship) or minor (winning a home basketball game). Memories are a dangerous thing, if people misunderstand them. No matter how much we will it, the past cannot be changed and in this way, memories are a weapon of personal destruction. Someone could be tortured by a memory, wanting to change it or from the sheer pain of experiencing it. Sometimes we can’t think of a memory and it bothers us, but if we can’t remember important things, it’s dangerous and might be diagnosed as amnesia. The memory might be on the tip of our tongue, but slips away. The results of the occurrence may still be embedded in our personality, but we can’t remember where they came from. Losing your memory could be more dangerous than any weapon of war. Ryne

At first I had a hard time fitting these two haiku together to make a response, but as I re-read them more, I realized that both of these haiku are about trying to fight situations which are impossible to change, to fight a futile battle against the invincible. The first haiku speaks of an entity which refuses to be grasped like water, and at the same time makes a huge impact on the one whom they come in contact with. Similarly, the second poem deals with the wind, an entity which also cannot be held, and at the same time is stirs the deepest memories of ones past, touch you even though you cannot tough it back. Both of these show a sense of fate, things that come along which affect you adversely but are the things that must happen to remind you that you’re alive. In these haiku lies the truth that separates blissful fantasy from reality and in turn creates life by disturbing perfect nothingness there in creating the imperfect ripple in the pond that is life. Andrew

intellect on rye
threatening to leave
the country

summer gust
stirring the ashes
of our past

top quarter champion =

summer gust
stirring the ashes
of our past
 

bottom half champion =

summer gust
stirring the ashes
of our past

bottom quarter champion =

mountainside path
a single tree
rooted in stone
 

mountainside path
a single tree
rooted in stone

Mom’s Friday sigh
filling the Tupperware
with my sloppy joe

mountainside path
a single tree
rooted in stone

Rick Bearce

stray cats
my grandmother
with a BB pistol

Rick Bearce

oops, I did it again!
the hamburger churns in my stomach
like regret

Pat Steadman

Mom’s Friday sigh
filling the Tupperware
with my sloppy joe

Brian Blankenship

Again, Just as in the haiku above, I feel that this pair is a perfect match because of the way the first haiku has a story of its own, but yet sets a perfect scene for the second. I see a barren landscape struggling itself to survive, let alone support anything. At the same time, the single tree sprouts with its roots dug in as far as possible, refusing to give up. In the second haiku, I see this scene developing on the landscape created by the first, with the grandmother refusing to give up her roots even to the presence of a few cats. She is pledged and determined to fight against everything to the end, by any means necessary. I feel that both haiku also give a picture of the Iraqi people and how they view their home at this moment, awkward and barren, yet striving for existence. Excellent haiku by both authors. Erin Wyant

I really just enjoy the simplicity of this haiku. The message is clear. The out of context nature of the tree in alone the stone path is a wonderful image that is pack with emotion. I like the concept of something living where life should not exist – thriving against a stronghold of oppression. The very fact that a tree, as we understand it, grows in fertile peat and soil, and should not be sprouting from this lifeless stone is not only a very fantastic image, but one that preaches the value of perseverance – a kind of never-say-never attitude. There’s not much more to this haiku that I can really explain – I just thoroughly enjoy it. Brain Blankenship

I thought that this was a very good example of a sabi haiku. The image created encompasses a sense of isolation and peacefulness. It places the poet in a very inspirational, zen mindset where he can be at one with the nature that surrounds him. A tree that is rooted in stone holds a very stoic and mystic strength. A tree that is rooted in soil may see the earth around it erode and be washed away, but a tree rooted in stone is strong and powerful. While the tree may stand alone, it still holds a self possessed sense of strength. I really liked this haiku, and it was by far my favorite of the group. Jamie

I enjoyed these two haiku together because of the dual imagery they provoke. Although I wrote the first one (and don’t like it all that much), I think the two together compliment each other very well. On the second one, I wouldn’t necessarily make the connection to Lent without the first haiku. After reading the first, I imagined in the second the mother sighing because she accidentally made sloppy joe sandwiches for her children, forgetting that it was a meatless day. I see her in the kitchen; it’s still dark out. Halfway through making the sandwiches, she realizes what she’s doing, curses, and continues doing it anyway. If I hadn’t read the first haiku, I would have read the second as the mother simply being sick of doing daily household chores. She sighs because of the monotony of her life. The two haiku together gives the second and entirely different meaning. —Pat

my sleepless nights
are her dangerous days
same stars

half a world away
she whispers my name
I jolt awake

half a world away
she whispers my name
I jolt awake

my drunken friend
provides his checklist of
sorrows
to the fireflies

Though these two weren’t originally paired together, I had a hard time deciding which one should be the champion. They both possess the same feeling of two people—husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend—being connected despite being “a world away” as the second haiku says. One would think being so far away from each other would evoke feelings of loneliness or solitude, but I think both of these feel as if there is a feeling of peace coming from both. I liked how they seemed to stray from that normal feeling associated with war. Elizabeth Braden

I feel like these haiku tell two sides to the same story. The first haiku tells of a lover on the other side of the earth, aching from loneliness for the one she loves. The second one, however, reminds us that her lover is experiencing things that she’s never even dreamed of. The man who eventually once again takes her in his arms is not the man who left them a year before. I read a book once that discussed the hardships that married couples faced when the husband came back from Vietnam. The emotion stress soldiers go through is immense, and cannot possibly be understood by the people at home. So when they finally return home to their loved ones, they are changed people. These haiku reminded me of that stress. Stephanie

half a world away
she whispers my name
i jolt awake

mom’s Friday sigh
filling the Tupperware
with my sloppy joe

half a world away
she whispers my name
I jolt awake

mountainside path
a single tree
rooted in stone

These two haiku were the ones that made it into the final round of my War Torn World Kukai Contest. Which when thinking about being War Torn usually I think of how a country will be torn apart or how a government or society or territory will being in ruins, but I never really thought how a family could be worn torn literally because the family is now physically apart. For this reason it was a little interesting that I picked these two haiku as my favorite.

The first one made me think about the twins in the presentation [Jackie & Jenny Spinner] and how the one twin was here at home in the states and the other was in the middle of the war. I probably wouldn’t have thought of that had I not gone to the presentation. The reason I did really like this haiku was because it can also relate to more than just twins. Anyone with a loved one can relate to this haiku. Even more it doesn’t just relate to people separated by war, it just relates to people who are separated.

However, I liked the second one even more just because of how more of an emotional or sentimental scene the second haiku illustrates. I can see a soldier’s or journalist’s mother still setting a place at the table for her son or daughter. She even serves food on their plate as if she is expecting them to just walk in late for dinner. And even after dinner she still didn’t just throw away their food but saved it in a Tupperware container as if they were going to be there later on or the next day. It is a great image of hope and how a person carries on with their life when someone is away but how they obviously haven’t forgotten the person that they love. Corinne

I really like how my top and bottom half champions complement each other by providing contrasting images: the first haiku is about two connected objects, and the second one is about one solitary object. Yet, both haiku convey a sense of stretching the earth’s great expanse. In the first one, we have two lives uniting in spirit from opposite sides of earth. These connected lives are able to stretch the length of the world. In the second haiku, we have a lonely tree that is able to spread its roots out to touch the world across. Out of context it is very hard to imagine that either of these haiku are about war, but together they certainly comment on a goal for world unity. Melanie McLay

my sleepless nights
are her dangerous days
same stars

war torn country
just a simple glimpse
from our TV dinner

my sleepless nights
are her dangerous days
same stars

the twin feels
her sleeping sister's fear
a war away

These two paired up in the top quarter and bottom quarter champion brackets. I really like how they both convey a message of life in America and life in the war zone. The first one is really interesting because of the last line, same stars. I really like that line because it reminds me that although these two people are in almost opposite conditions, they both can look up and see the same stars at night. The second one also gives that image of two different people in different locations but in the same world. It is a bit more generalized, but it gives me a feeling almost nonchalance. As this family is eating dinner and watching the news, they see the horrors of war taking place half way around the world, but then they just resume eating dinner. Both of these do an excellent job of showing how different other parts of the world can be. Rick Bearce

These two haiku seem as though they both stemmed from some original third haiku. It really feels like they came from the exact same place. I like how both of them depict complete and total terror without actually describing it with any vivid language at all. Really, I don't have an imagined response beyond basically what the second haiku says, but I really like both of these haiku and it was difficult to decide which one should move on in the contest. Brian R.

my sleepless nights
are her dangerous days
same stars

summer gust
stirring the ashes
of our past

Both of these haiku have a strong sense of connection. Even though the two people in the first haiku are half a world apart, they are still connected by the stars. I also really like the way that the author specifies that the woman at home’s nights are “sleepless” because she is worried about the “dangerous” days of her sister. In the second haiku, there is a sense of connection because it seems that their pasts must be entwined. Allison Lingren