Out of Nowhere

the roar of the sea
coming out of nowhere -
dawn in the mist

Argentina Stanciu

fog in the harbour –
the seagull’s cry
out of nowhere

Sonia Cristina Coman

Haiku poetry often seems mannerist poetry. Both due to the techniques used and due to the fact that it addresses the same issues. In both poems above we are presented with the same strange experience of the inability to visually locate the sounds heard through the fog. The experience itself is that of a state of uncertainty and disorientation. Being wrapped in fog creates an anxious state of the senses which can no longer co-operate optimally. Without visual cues, what you hear makes you more disconcerted.

This is our situation. The way it is treated in the two poems, however, although the props are about the same, the fog, the sea, is quite different. The first poem is a quiet one, it captures the fact directly. The sound of the sea is always perceived as an breath always resumed by the waves that reach a peak and then vanish quietly into the sand. The fog happens during dawn and it will soon disappear. The middle line is one that lengthens and apparently weakens the tension of the sound coming from nowhere.

The second poem knows and wishes to control the tension by increasing it. The fog seems to paralyze the port. What was meant to be a visual, vital dynamic has perished and is speechless. Instead of the monotonous roar of the sea, suddenly and shortly, we hear a gushing sound, tearing through the numbing fog, that of the terrible wailing of the seagull. Its searching is full of anxiety, and the answer to not finding what it is looking for is just an elliptical and concise one, almost defiantly – out of nowhere.

(Corneliu Traian Atanasiu)

The Honeymoon

THIRD PLACE

Indian Kukai #14/COFFEE

honeymoon -

only morning coffee

without sugar

Capotă Daniela Lăcrămioara

The poem’s most important quality is its discretion. The author communicates just a state of things and, by the way in which she discloses it, an attitude towards it – a restraining, distant, unapproachable one. The way in which the two elements in the composition are presented – the honeymoon and the morning coffee – is a white one, apparently neutral, devoid of poetic ornaments and rhetorical garments. Nothing to attract attention or influence the unsophisticated reception of the two objects.

Apparently, because there are words that insinuate something more, that slip in some allusions. The coffee without sugar can be a harmless personal(ized) preference, a kind of habit of the customer’s choice, but in tandem with the honey (moon), and tuned by the restrictive preposition only, suggests that, in the given situation (honeymoon), the sweetness is anyway still plentiful and would not need anything else.

However, the allusions do not stop here. If it's all about the morning coffee, then we can accept that the moon, yellow as honey, is still in the sky and we can sip, in equal servings, the coffee and its unforgettable charm. Perhaps this charm is related to that of an old time honeymoon. Even if we forgot to put sugar in our coffee, it does not matter, if there are sufficient compensations today. And we might, even though we do not have diabetes, give up sugar (why not coffee as well?) just for the honey in the honeymoon.

A genuine haiku text communicates the important things not literally, but by the allusive slippage of a few words and some details in the stituation presented. It is possible to have here an encoded parable: when the moon is made of honey, avoid anything sugarcoated.

(Corneliu Traian Atanasiu)

Ice Flowers

Kigo Theme: WINTER FLOWERS

First Place -  28 Points

ice flowers...

the weight of words

I never said

Cezar Ciobika

(2,5,12) = 28 pts

**That last line really made me think...

          The contest Shiki Monthly Kukai is the oldest, most known and most frequently attended online kukai in the world. It is also the model we took after for our Romanian online kukai and it is no wonder that, as I remember, it has been won by the following participants in the RO KU group: Manuela Dragomirescu on May 2011, Eduard Țară in November 2013, Eduard Țară in February 2014, Lavana Kray in March 2014 and Cristina Oprea in May 2014.  

I believe that in English the poem has not only more expressive weight, but also more liveliness due to the verb in the first person. The version I would like to propose for Romanian is this: flori de gheață… / greutatea cuvintelor / nespuse vreodată. As you are reading the poem, you hesitate between accepting the tenderness of the ice flower and their being stone-cold, between tenderness and power (weight). The juxtaposition makes you gain an allegorical vision of the poem. The ice flowers are the result of avoiding difficult, heavy words in a conflictual situation, the equivalent of silence, of unspoken words.  However, in another situation, where you should confess your admiration, they can also be the words you would like to say but cannot say, as you know they would not live up to the expectations of what is to be said.

The ice flowers are an oxymoron. We find in them the grace and fragility of flowers but also the burden of the heavy ice. Last, but not least, there is the weight, that is, the value, of the unspoken words. The delicate and silent arabesque lying on the transparency between two human beings left speechless, overcome by emotions.

(Corneliu Traian Atansiu)

Imminent War

imminent war -
the younger girl next door
thickening the plot

Vasilica Grigoraș

Diagonally, we have two words related to the craft of war: war and plot. Along the way, their meanings, however, by attracting other words, skid towards more subversive meanings: scheming, conspiracies, and intrigues. The word imminent makes the war slide towards conflict, thickening the plot that causes it, by messing things up through unwanted situations and complications.

Unification of meaning comes from the middle line – the younger girl next door. It gives us the indication to the whole allegorical situation, otherwise elliptical. It is only now that we can stretch out the plot before us to understand the intrigues and imminent conflict: the (attractive) girl next door has hit on the man on the other side of the fence and has messed up the relationship of the pair who had tied up the knot. A declaration of war cannot be avoided.

Anyone who loves haiku will certainly enjoy the complexity and fabric economy of the poem above.

(Corneliu Traian Atanasiu)