2020 Award Winners
2020 Award Winners(Word document)
Lilian Kalish, Fox Mill Elementary
さくら雪、こいぬとはしる、ポンポンと
Playful! The second and third ku are clear and lively, and the puppy is the principal image of the verse. I like how you placed ポンポンと at the end of the poem. This technique, which is called hyperbaton in English and てんちほう (転置法) in Japanese, is seen as far back as the waka 和歌 collection Man’yōshū 万葉集 (759).
In the first ku, I’m not sure exactly how to interpret さくら雪: is it さくらのように降る雪? Or perhaps 雪を思わせるさくら, or perhaps あざむく春 雪 even さくらを 欺 しゅんせつ(i.e. snow that we mistake for sakura, because it falls in spring)? Or is Sakura Yuki the puppy’s name? If this first ku were made slightly clearer, the poem would track more easily, but it is very lovely nonetheless. Excellent work!
Lucas DeMarco, Fox Mill Elementary
夏やすみ、テントをてらす、あさひかな
Very nicely done. The impression is of being on a camping trip during summer vacation, and waking up to one’s tent illuminated by the morning sun.
あさひ is a powerful image of strength and rebirth, and the gairaigo 外来語 word テント even reminds one pleasantly of ladybugs (tento-mushi ). Masaoka Shiki would be proud! This poem also uses the emphatic word かな perfectly, as the collocation with あさひ is especially successful.
Genevieve Wade, Fox Mill Elementary
あおあおと、あかいみがさく、りんごの木
Colorful! Here we encounter the curious case of the color あお, and some questions surrounding the verb さく. The adverb あおあお may either describe a deep blue sky or deep green foliage — a result of the wonderful polysemy of the word あお (青/蒼/碧). Here, of course, the reader understands the meaning to be “green.”
I would observe that you have collocated あおあおと with the verb さく, which describes not the growth of the trees themselves, but the blossoming of the fruit. Usually, あおあお collocates with verbs describing growth of green foliage, such as しげる or 生い茂る. It is a beautiful image, but I might be inclined to use a different adverb at the beginning, one which goes better with fruit, suggests bright colors like red, and which collocates more naturally with the verb さく.
Okay Geneveive, let’s have some fun here. Poetry is “intertextual,” which means that it is always in touch with past works of literature. So instead of あおあお, let me suggest ふんふんと (蕡蕡と), the inspiration for which is the ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry (Jp. Shikyō 詩経), which influenced East Asian poetries in a way similar to the influence of Greek or Hebrew poetry on European poetries. There is a line from a poem called “Buxom is the Peach Tree” that reads as follows:
Buxom is the peach tree, so plump its fruit!
桃之夭夭，有蕡其実 (もものようようたる、ふんたるあり、そのみ)
The Hiragana reading in parenthesis is the result of a practice called kundoku 訓読, which enables one to read classical Chinese in a special register of classical Japanese. I am deriving ふんふんと from ふんたるあり (有蕡), which refers to the plumpness of the peaches, and repurposing it to describe your big, red apples. The more poetry you read, the more you will be able to write — this is one of the great joys of extensive reading!
Meghan Lin, Fox Mill Elementary
桜さく、風にまう春、今わかれ
Lovely. The second ku is especially interesting: what does it mean for springtime to “dance in the wind?” I’m not sure, but it is a beautiful conception that reveals the mind of a mature poet. Your vocabulary here reminds me of the famous Kyōgoku 京極 school of waka 和歌 poetry from medieval times (fl. 13th and 14th centuries). Unlike the comparatively conservative Nijō 二条 poets, Kyōgoku poets sometimes used more unusual diction. For example:
松まつを払はらう、風が裾野
す そ のの、草に落ちて
ゆ う だつ雲に、雨競きおうなり
夕立
Sweeping down the pines,
The wind falls upon the grasses
Of the foothill moors below;
And with clouds that gather in the evening dusk,
The rain vies for priority! * 競う (vie, compete) is usually read きそう in modern Japanese.
Kyōgoku Tamekane 京極為兼 (1254-1332)
Aya Ryan, Fox Hill Elementary
はなびらが、風にひらひら、わかれ今
Light and airy: a perfect spring day! The image of flower petals fluttering gently in the wind is enchanting.
Both you and Meghan concluded your verses with an image of “parting now,” albeit with inverted word order. I think the sense that the parting takes place at the present moment is clear already,
making 今 a little unwieldy. I would be inclined to change the last ku to わかれゆく, or something along those lines.
Mia Buntin, Fox Hill Elementary
しずかな日、はかないなみだ、桜ちる
Very impressive! The phrase はかないなみだ possesses a moving, おうちょうじだい, c. 700-
sober quality befitting poetry of the courtly age (王朝時代 ちゅうせいじだい(1200-1600). Overall, the poem has
1200) and medieval era 中世時代
a strong staccato rhythm, due to what scholars would term a paratactic arrangment of the ku. In poetry, there are two basic ways that lines can relate to each other: parataxis (heiretsu 並列 in Japanese), and hypotaxis (jūzoku 従属). The former simply places phrases side by side without making grammatical relations explicit, while in the latter, the use of particles or verb conjugations make the relationships clear. For example, were we to change the first ku to しづけさに, which means “in the silence,” the particle に makes clear that whatever happens next happens in the silence.
Julia Miner, Lake Braddock Secondary School
しんがっき、はるがきている、いちごがり
The choice of a kango 漢語 compound such as しんがっき is bold, but well within the parameters of modern haiku. There is an interesting contrast between しんがっき and いちごがり: the former is tied to the structured world of school and, as noted is a kango, while the latter suggests leisure and, linguistically, is comprised of wago 和語 (イチゴ, 狩る), which derive entirely from old Japanese.
Joshua Sho Larrabee, Lake Braddock Secondary School
もみじのは、ゆうぞらそめる、おとがする
This is a truly unique poem. What sound do the autumn leaves make as they “dye the evening sky”? Rustling perhaps? I’m not sure, but it is a very intriguing conception that revelas a talented poet. I might be inclined to change もみじのは, which is grammatically correct but uncommon, to もみじばは (紅葉は), which is a long attested word in Japanese poetry.
Jason Guzzetti, Lake Braddock Secondary School
きりやまや、とりのさえずり、ひがのぼる
Calm and uplifting imagery. Very good poetic conception too, beginning with opacity (fog) and moving to clarity (the sun)! I am assuming that きりやま means a mountain that is shrouded in mist (i.e. 霧山), not a mountain of pauwlonia trees (桐山). If this is indeed what you meant, then きりのやま might be better, since きりやま sounds like a proper noun — a place named Kiriyama.
Emma Conger, Lake Braddock Secondary School
はるかぜや、たんぽぽのたね、くさにつく
Excellent. This verse is technically flawless: the diction is natural and the imagery is lovely. たんぽぽ is a perfect haiku word: it is not found in traditional waka, but haiku seeks artistic depth in flashes of quotidian life, and dandelion seeds are exactly the kind of thing good haiku poets notice. Everything in this verse flows naturally and connects well; Bravo!
Sungah Kong, Lake Braddock Secondary School
なつのよの、ひかるほたると、ほしのみち
Superb! The thing that really catches my eye is the particle と in the second ku: in poetry this is a very flexible particle that may function as an abbreviation for phrases such as として, とて [=と思って, と言 って, と感じて, etc.] Hence, the image that arises in my mind is one where the glittering fireflies look like, or remind one of, the Milky Way (something like ピカピカ光っているほたると思わせるようなほしの みち). The first ku is also quite nice, and very traditional.
Vanessa Nikitin, Lake Braddock Secondary School
ことりたち、よちよちあるく、はるのおと
Adorable! The imagery of the first two ku are reminiscent of the great 18th century poet Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶. Conceptually, however, it’s a bit hard for the reader to connect the word oto to the rest of the poem: what sound does よちよちあるく make? That point aside, it is still a charming and successful poem.
Alexander Yenchi, Lake Braddock Secondary School
たんぽぽや、はるいちばんが、くしゃみする
Vernal! Dandelions and sneezing are wonderfully apposite haiku words, and your poetic conception is very good. The part to work on here is the second ku, which is a little akward grammatically.
You wish to say “springtime is when I sneeze the most,” or something along those lines. Mindful of the syllabic constraints — we want to maintain the 7-5 rhythm — perhaps we could
restructure the piece to はるはくしゃみを、するきせつ (kisetsu = season), or something like that.
Christopher Toko, Lake Braddock Secondary School
なみがきて、しずかにかえる、はるのうみ
Good conception! The effect of waves upon the shore is actually not as common a topic as one might imagine. Your poem, which emphasizes the quiet rhythms of a springtime sea, reminds me of one that is also about waves, but which emphasizes their power:
おおうみの、いそもとどろに、よするなみ、
われてくだけて、さけてちるかも
From the great sea, the waves rumble in upon the shore: Breaking and bashing, cleaving and crashing they fall!
Minemoto Sanetomo 源実朝 (1192-1219)
Daphne Ziegenfelder, Lake Braddock Secondary School
あきのよる、かぜがおちばを、かけぬけた
Autumnal! This is a good poem that shows much promise. The second and third ku form a complete sentence, which is exactly the way most classical Japanese poetry worked. Interestingly, in poetry the most common word for “night” isn’t よる but just よ (though both may be written 夜). Hence, traditionally we would probably
expect something like あきのよの in the first ku, which would in fact make the entire verse a single sentence!
Joseph Lind, Lake Braddock Secondary School
猛吹雪、セイウチ赤ちゃん、寄りそって
Arctic! This reminds me of the videos I’ve seen of seals approaching beachgoers, but I don’t think I’ve seen many featuring walruses! The contrast between the fierce, wintry asperity of 猛吹雪 and the cuteness of 赤ちゃん is interesting.
Rachel Wang, Lake Braddock Secondary School
池の上、蛍の明かり、照り映える
Very nicely done. The imagery is classic haiku. The diction is good as well, though each ku is grammatically separate, giving the piece a staccato rhythm. Historically, poems such as this might employ an extra syllable (ji-amari 字余り) in the first ku to indicate grammatical relation, e.g. 池の上に). The use of this technique is common, and the imagery of your poem reminds me of this humorous piece, which also begins with a double ji-amari:
あらぬところに、日をともしりけり、いかにして、
蛍のしりは、光るらむ
In an unlikely place, A lamp has been lit up! How, I wonder, Does a firefly’s butt Glow so brightly?
From the collection Inu Tsukubashū (犬筑波集), compiled by Yamazaki Sōkan 山崎宗鑑 around the year 1524.
Michael Volkman, Lake Braddock Secondary School
おちばやま、どんぐりおちて、りすひろう
Like Rachel’s verse, the individual ku are grammatically distinct, but a ji-amari in the first ku would be much more noticeable. The reason is that in Japanese poetry, syllables are often glided together. For example, in the following ku, the の and う were probably glided together when read out loud:
わかのうらに… “At Waka Bay, …”
あふみのうみに〈近江の海に〉“On the Ōmi Sea…” (i.e. on Lake Biwa 琵琶湖〉.
In Rachel’s poem, we’d have the same thing, as the の and う of 池の うえに would be glided together. However, there are no syllables in the word おちばやま that can be easily elided, meaning that adding a に on the end would really stand out.
Regardless, the image of a squirrel collecting acorns is truly wonderful for haiku. The repetition of ochi (ochiba, ochite) may be seen as a strength or a weakness, depending on one’s rhythmic preferences. Repeating words (or close cognates) in a short poetic form is a bold strategy; it can make the poem stand out as unusually forceful, but often it simply sounds unnecessarily repetitive.
The more I read this verse, the more I think it’s a strength: I love the image of acorns falling into a pile of leaves and squirrels picking them up!
Stella Chiou, Lake Braddock Secondary School
夏祭り、とつぜん花火、晴れた空
To many critics, the essence of haiku is that it capture a single moment of precious, everyday life — sudden fireworks on a clear summer night does this beautifully. Bravo!
The decision to use kango 漢語 vocabulary (words of Chinese origin) in haiku is bold, but it has a very good precedent: the great 19th century poet Masaoka Shiki liked incorporating kango and even words from Western languages (gairaigo 外来語) in Japanese poetry. In this poem, the kango word is totsuzen 突然, “suddenly.” In general, words that come from Chinese are seen as “strong” while words deriving from old Japanese (wago 和語) are seen as “gentle.”
Think about the difference in feel created by using wago terms with the same meaning: にわかに花火, たちまち花火, いきなり花火, etc. These words all carry the same meaning as totsuzen, but derive from old Japanese. Like English, which has both Latinate and Anglo-Saxon words, Japanese has two layers of vocabulary, one that came from written Chinese and another that comes from the ancient spoken languages of the archipelago.
Some notes on the three wago alternatives mentioned here: niwaka (にわか, 俄, 遽) is a noun or “na-adjective” (keiyō dōshi 形容動 詞) that appears frequently in poetry in the compound niwaka-ame にわか雨, 俄雨, “a sudden rainshower.” Tachimachi is an adverb and is often written 忽ち, and you can make it into a kango word by adding ~然 (and using the on-yomi of the kanji) to get kotsuzen 忽然, which has the same meaning as totsuzen. Finally, ikinari is a common word used in Japanese today, and is perhaps a little less formal than totsuzen.
Sam Ahn, Lake Braddock Secondary School
坂の上、また学校が、見えるぼく
This is a good poetic conception — climbing a hill behind a school is something many readers across generations can identify with. I wonder if you meant まだ (“still”) instead of また (“again”) in the second ku, which works better with the stative verb mieru. The third ku is bold and unusual — I have not encountered a poem that concludes with the first-person pronoun boku.
In Japanese poetry, the first-person perspective is usually assumed, making it unnecessary to specify that it is you who can see the school. Hence, I might be inclined to omit boku and rephrase the verse. The good thing about doing this is that it would free up two extra syllables to work with!
Regan Daily, St. Paul’s School for Girls
子どもたち、そとでにじみる、あかるいや
Very lovely imagery. Because the kire-ji 切れ字 ya is usually used in the first or (less commonly) the second ku, I would be inclined to replace あかるいや with あかるいぞ at the end.
Eden Malone, St. Paul’s School for Girls
さみだれや、うれしいダンス、子どもたち
Happy dance! The first ku is very traditional, while the second recalls the American vernacular idiom “happy dance” — a most
interesting blend. The image is perfect for haiku; the only downside is that the phrase ureshii dansu uses up a full seven syllables, making it hard to connect the three ku more tightly.
Sophie Marano, St. Paul’s School for Girls
たきのうえ、お水がながれ、日がのぼる
せいすいの滝たきか? Each ku contains very nice imagery, and o-mizu is 聖水 especially interesting: I would like to know more about the background of the poem. Usually, the phrase o-mizu お水 is used either for water we order at a restaurant, or in specific religious contexts (e.g. o-mizu tori 御水取り, a ritual involving holy water that is included in the Shuni-e 修二会 ceremonies).
Bonheur Mbaya, St. Paul’s School for Girls
たねまきや、そとはたのしい、はちがとぶ
Pastoral! There is an entire sub-genre of poetry, pastoral poetry, which in East Asia is often called “poems on fields and gardens” (den’en shi 田園詩). Here, the first and third ku exemplify this tradition, with はち a particularly good word for haiku. Not surprisingly, たねまき has a very long history in Japanese poetry; it is an image that suggests difficult agricultural work, but also the promise of abundance. Interestingly, bees exemplify hard work and abundance too. Excellent use of diction!
Valerie Mooney, St. Paul’s School for Girls
あめのあと、あかるいにじや、よりうたう
Lift your voices unto the heavens! Very nice conception for haiku: the time after a rainstorm is peaceful, and the image of a bright rainbow seems almost to beckon the viewer to song! Putting the kire-ji in the second ku is always interesting, and it works quite well here.
Asa Marshall, Globalize DC: Japanese Plus
さくきれい、なつがちかづく、がんばって
Final run before summer break!! The conception informing the second and third ku is clear: just a little more school to go, then it’s summertime! I’m not quite sure how to parse the first ku, however. The word kirei is typically used adjectivally, which suggests saku is a noun such as “fence” 柵さく, but it’s unclear how precisely it relates to the next ku (do fences become pretty as summer approaches? Is the fence enmeshed with flowering vines, perhaps?) I wonder if you meant to write something like 花, and were imagining them in bloom (咲く) and so wrote さく instead : ) But perhaps this is just my misinterpretation; sometimes, the reader misses the poet’s conception, and perhaps I have missed yours. Regardless, the sentiment seems clear, and is one with which any student can identify!
Aeris Thompson, Globalize DC: Japanese Plus
森の中、セミは戻れた、お大事に
A truly interesting blend of the natural and the social. The first ku puts the reader in a dark, wild space; the cicadas in the second ku continue the forest-related imagery, while the third ku expresses (the poet’s?) well wishes (to the cicadas, I assume). I love the forest and the cicadas, and Kobayashi Issa would certainly root for the intrepid insects!
But I’m not sure how I should interpret 戻れた, which appears to be in the potential conjugation (“the cicadas were able to return”). Was something stopping them? Is the idea that since we have to wait several years for their return, we celebrate their arrival? And if so, is the final お大事に said in anticipation of their ephemeral existence? The imagery is excellent, but I am unsure of the precise poetic conception behind the piece.
Cyrus Johnson, Globalize DC: Japanese Plus
あの月は、よるにキラキラ、とりがなく
の う りを去さらないあの夜よの月か？ The first ku is Intriguing! 今でも脳裏 captivating, though the reader wonders which moon you speak of, and what its significance is. Of course, we know it’s “the Moon,” but the use of あの raises some interesting questions. For example, if I say あの映画はおもしろかった, the implication is that you know the movie I’m talking about, and that you’ve seen it too. Moreover, in Japanese poetry, the moon is a symbol of connection between people who are separated (since even when far apart, they can look up and see the same moon). So I wonder: are you remembering that special moon, the moon as it shone on a specific night still precious to your memory?
Your poem reminds me of a famous poem by Ariwara no Narihira 在原業平 (825-880):
月やあらぬ、春やむかしの、春ならぬ、
我わが身みひとつは、もとの身みにして
Is there no moon? Is not this spring the spring of the past? I alone remain unchanged, the I that originally was.
Another translation is given by Robert Brower and Earl Miner, eminent scholars of Japanese poetry:
What now is real?
This moon, this spring, are altered
From their former being —
While this alone, my mortal body, remains
As ever changed by love beyond all change.
Narihira is a challenging poet, and this is a difficult poem to interpret.
Jason Pahadee, Falls Church High School
日焼けして、アイスクリーム、夏休み
The imagery in this verse is lovely, and quite apposite for haiku. The gairaigo 外来語 aisukuriimu is precisely the sort of term the great haiku poet Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規 would have used. The only downside is that it takes up seven whole syllables, leaving no room for grammatical connections between the ku. One strategy is to abbreviate aisukuriimu to aisu, leaving room for a verb (e.g. アイスを
なめる, or even アイスでいやそう (いやす means “heal” or “soothe” and creates ambiguity — do we mean soothing the sunburn by putting ice on it or by eating ice cream?)). Regardless, reading this makes me want it to be summer vacation already!
Anneke DeJong, Falls Church High School
雪の花、椅子に座って、雲隠れ
Mysterious! About 100 years ago, a school of writing came into being that was called the Neo-Perceptionalist school (Shin kankaku ha 新感覚派). The great novelist Kawabata Yasunari 川端康成 was associated with this school in the 1920s and 1930s, and your poem recalls the style of writing in his famous novel Yukiguni 雪国 (Snow Country).
Given that Japanese poetry is typically set in the first person, I wonder where you are sitting to be “hidden in the clouds.” The principal images — snowflakes falling like flower petals, a chair, and enveloping clouds — create an interesting and defamiliarizing mix. Also, the word 雲隠れ in classical Japanese is sometimes a euphemism for death, and it is the title of a chapter in Lady Murasaki’s masterpiece Genji monogatari 源氏物語 (The Tale of Genji), written around the year 1010. Hence, I wonder: are you sitting in a chair reading Genji monogatari? Perhaps not, but this is the kind of thing that makes poetry so fun — words have meanings and associations that allow all kinds of mental connections to be made while reading!
Michelle Long, Falls Church High School
鳥歌う、羽を広げて、花揺れる
The second and third ku are absolutely beautiful! The first is interesting, since 歌う is not usually the verb used to mean “sing” in
relation to birds (naku 鳴く, 啼く is typical). Hence, we might rephrase the first ku to something like なく鳥が, or something along those lines. But regardless, the image of a bird spreading its wings and the perturbation that creates in the blossoms is a very successful conception.
Omar Naseem, Falls Church High School
雪が降る、スノーエンジェル、久しぶり
Winter wonderland! The connections in this poem are all highly へいれつてき) — each ku is placed alongside the others
paratactic (並列的
without explicit grammatical connection. The choice of a single seven-syllable word in the second ku makes this almost inevitable, of course — a similar situation Jason faced with the use of アイスク リーム. Still, this verse really needs no explicit grammatical relations to be clear: the reader can immediately identify with the childhood joy of that first snowfall, the first since last year, that allows you to make snow angels again!
Ryan Quach, Falls Church High School
寒すぎる、何もしなくて、二度寝する
どうも寒くなればなるほど起きにくくなるね！Wintertime at home! Attention is drawn to the third ku, as 二度寝 is a truly great word for haiku. The diction and grammar are natural, and overall the piece flows smoothly, possessed of an impromptu feel.
Yuina Barzdukas, Falls Church High School
唇で、暖かい雪、すぐ消える
What a wonderful, unique poetic conception! This is a really nice example of using haiku to successfully poeticize snapshots of quotidian life. The grammatical connections flow easily and the diction is natural. In the first ku, I might be inclined to use the particle に after 唇, since the final verb is intransitive.
Noah Gardner, Falls Church High School
牡丹雪、ココアを飲んで、もう吹雪
Snowy! References to snow bracket a lovely image of personal solace. The use of the word 牡丹 (in the pronunciation ボタン, and not the traditional フカミグサ) was famously favored by the great 19th century poet Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規, creator of the modern haiku.
The final ku is powerful — the reader imagines 猛吹雪, “fiercely blowing snow” — though in a form as short as haiku, it is usually best to avoid repetition of the same word (yuki is a core constituent of both compounds botanyuki and fubuki).
Kate Giudice, St. Paul’s School for Girls
あめふって、はすおもしろい、しずかかな
Excellent use of classical diction! The word omoshiroi has a long history of application to blooming flowers, occurring for example in the 9th century collection of poem tales Ise monogatari (伊勢物語): かきつばたいとおもしろく咲たり, “The irises were blooming ever so charmingly” (かきつばた = iris; いと = very, how (lovely)!; 咲きたり = 咲いていた). Moreover, the lotus is rich in symbolic potential: it
blooms in ponds and swamps, and the presence of a beautiful flower in muddy water is often used to symbolize Buddhist enlightenment.
