Monday, September 4, 2017

Results of Romanian Weekly Haiku Contest no. 511



First Place – Mihai Pascaru

abandoned wagon -
spinning on the axles
only the bindweed


Second Place – Ioana Bud

nobody home -
the moon knocks on the window
each and every night


Second Place – Cezar-Florin Ciobîcă

after the downpour -
the spikes bending under the weight
of so many stars


Third Place – Rodica Calotă

ant on the threshold –
grandma no longer gathers
the crumbs


Mention – Vasile Conioși-Mesteșanu

first nuts -
the ball deflated
on the roof


Mention – Valeria Tamaș

the old girder –
still on the night shift
the old pinhole


Mention – Mihai Pascaru

late hour -
a cricket falls asleep
in the moon’s hammock


Mention – Luminița Ignea

whitening peaks -
here and there a fir-tree
hanging from the sky


Mention – Cezar-Florin Ciobîcă

the crash of the fair -
a stray dog drives
the cat crazy

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Romanian Kukai August 2017



 Special Prize



alone on the alleys -
red poppies  and black eyes
in the wheat field

Adrian-Nicolae Popescu



First Place


evening in Bărăgan plain -
the sickle of the moon descends
over the baked wheat

Mihai Pascaru


Second Place


the enlightened road -
on either side
baked grains


Ioana Bud



chanting -
over the riped wheat
his cracked hand

Argentina Stanciu


Third Place



harvested wheat -
trampled by a combine
the old man's scythe

Petru-Ioan Gârda



the patched bag -
a few grains of wheat
left behind

Grigore Chitul


great feast -
the grasshoppers’ stir
in the wheat field

Cristina Oprea Young




the burnt stubble field -
a fight between sparrows
for a grain of wheat

Valeria Tamaș


Fourth Place



unreaped wheat -
next to the empty barns
a rusted scythe

Lucreția Horvath



cloudy day -
only in the wheat field
abundant sunshine

Nadin Ghileschi


Fifth Place


threshed wheat -
yeasting in the womb
first baby



Mihaela Băbușanu



ploughed stubble fields -
steaming the eyes
the bride’s cake

Luminița Ignea



reaped wheat -
the quail’s young ones
attempting to fly

Letiția Iubu


Sixth Place


the house after
grandfather leaves -
scent of boiling wheat

Ildiko Juverdeanu



wavy wheat -
never has her hair been
closer

Julia Ralia



new aura -
Jesus on the crucifix
with a crown of ears

Florin Florian

Monday, April 10, 2017

"this beach of pebbles"



The poem below received a mention in the sixth edition of the SGP (Sharpening the Green Pencil Contest). It can be considered as a model of bouncing the ordinary life towards the area of allegory.

this beach of pebbles
after the wave
my life rearranged

Gregory PIKO
Yass, AUSTRALIA

I think the focus is on this – “this beach of pebbles”. This very beach I contemplate and recall now. This beach which reveals something unexpected and fascinating to me. This very beach which I propose to you as an object of admiration and meditation. The colloquial language knows how to say, elliptically and concisely, just what there is to say. It does not charge the text with details and descriptive adjectives. That is enough and also very expressive, it calls you over there, to see, to feel and to understand the situation.

The text continues as laconic as before, and, finally, skids more than suggestively, from what the wave really does - it draws the pebbles and leaves them in a new, different order - towards an effect that is entirely implausible – it (re)orders the author’s life (or the reader’s, if he also consents to this revelation). Through this simple substitution of the image of the relentless change of the pebbles’ ordering, moved away by the waves at the same time with human life, what we see is a teaching, and the text acquires the aesthetic value of a haiku.

Revelation, in the human sequence, is actually an assumption under the sway of an image that becomes a vision. There is no disorder, any change under the incessant assault of the waves of life is another unexpected and wondrous order. Thi wave is only the moment when someone has understood and has reconciled with his fate. The pebbles have long known this. And were always saying it, but in vain. The poem tells it to us without insisting, it gives us only food for thought. It draws our attention to the fact that it's already happened to someone.

(Comment by Corneliu Traian Atanasiu)

Romanian Monthly Kukai March 2017

Theme: using the word freesia



Special Prize

rainy day -
withered on the windowsill
a freesia

(Sabina Ciobanu)

First Prize

fuss on a freesia -
a ladybug
makes the sun wobble

(Mihai Pascaru)


Second Place

cool at dawn -
shaking on a freesia
dew drop

(Lucretia Horvath)


Third Place

anniversary -
on the dry freesia
moonlight

(Julia Ralia)


Fourth Place

freesia bouquet -
never forgotten the perfume
of the first date

(Dan Iulian)


Fifth Place

in-between perfusions -
a yellow freesia
changing the colour

(Doina Bogdan Wurm)


Sixth Place

a white freesia
under the burning candle -
my prayer

(Adina Enachescu)


Basarab train station -
the only valuables
a couple of freesia

(Giannis Kourtis)


cloudy sky -
the rainbow tamped into
the basket of freesias

(Luminita Ignea)


withered freesias -
my childhood home
alone at twilight

(Ioana Bud)



Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Pollen



pollen before the wind –
grandma’s door again
with a golden handle

Cristina Pârvu


Pollen is a subtle and fruitful matter. A golden powder being carried by a faceless and bodiless being towards a stigma miraculously apt to perpetuate life and liveliness.

In the natural slippage of suggestions, it cumulates the almost magical prestige of all golden things. The reality that the poem evokes is a rich one, in which the tale is intertwined with the real world. The golden doorknob reopens the realm full of fabulous promises of the beginnings.  

Comment by Corneliu Traian Atanasiu