XIV Calico Cat Haiku contest

A haiku of mine is one of the Honorable Mention winners in the XIV Calico Cat haiku contest organized by Olga Hooper aka 'Origa'. The haiku contest is a tribute to the late poet Hortensia Anderson.

Congratulations to the winners !


HERE'S THE LINK:  http://origa.livejournal.com/186861.html

About Olga Hopper / ORIGA
Olga is a member of the World Haiku Club, World Haiku Association, and Haiku Hut Poetry Forums. she was born in Siberia, Russia. She graduated from Tyumen State University with a master's degree with honors in history and social sciences. In postgraduate school her written thesis was in Russian history. For many years she has been a teacher in colleges and universities.

for more on Olga: http://simplyhaiku.com/SHv3n2/haiga_Traditional/hooperCeramics/index.html

About HORTENSIA ANDERSON
from  http://www.haijinx.com/authors/h.anderson.html

Hortensia Anderson has been a college teacher of ESL and English, a disc jockey in nyc nightclubs during the punk rock and new wave eras, a proof-reader and copy writer, and a gestalt psychotherapist. She started zen meditation in the late 1970s and got hooked. a free verse poet since the late 1970s, Hortensia joined the Shiki haiku mailing lists in 1998 finding fulfillment in the union of poetry and zen. her current interest is collaborative poetry and she always has several projects in the works.

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THE WINNERS
 1st place,  Sanjuktaa, India
2nd place, VIOLA, Russia
3rd place, OLGA MOUTOUH, France
 

HONORABLE MENTION haiku (originals -- на языке оригинала) :

Valeria Simonova-Cecon, Italy каменный Сфинкс / хранит тепло солнца / ночь напролёт
Viola, Russia бесшумно / упала звезда / плачет цикада
Angelo B. Ancheta, Philippines star gazing / my heart pauses / as you go
Pamela A. Babusci, USA shooting star / a warm cosmic trail / of her lingering words
Claire Everett, UK oasis … /a blue water lily / slips between the stars
Rafal Zabratynski, Poland ~ falling star – I wish I could pause time *
Penny Harter, USA the dark eyes / of the sphinx open / to starlight
Kirsten Cliff, New Zealand shooting star / I fold another / origami heart
Eiko Yachimoto, Japan Sacred May – I see my friend on the road / to eternity
Hana Nestieva, Israel отдел виз: / консульский офицер / с улыбкой сфинкса
Kit Nagamura, Japan indigo desert / even camels shiver / between sand and stars
Kit Nagamura, Japan Cairo at midnight / riddled faces / reflect desert stars
Martin Gottlib Cohen, USA desert chill / in the length of a breath / shooting star
Paul Cooper, USA midnight dewdrop’s edge, / a trace of falling starlight / slips away
Darrell Lindsey, USA senses jumbled / on the night of your departure / hydrangea stars  


All haiku entries were inspired by ORIGA's painting "MOMENT OF ETERNITY"

 

Japanese sumi ink

rice paper "double shuen", Chinese watercolors
Real size 9"x15" (appr. 23x38 cm)

ABOUT  CALICO CAT HAIKU CONTEST
from Origa's post
tw, some English-speaking friends asked about Calico Cat contest: how it started, why this name, etc. -- hence, the answer:

The project has started in 2004. The idea came to me when I painted my cat Frosya's portrait (she is not really a calico but a tortoise-shell cat -- but "calico" sounds better :))) The first Calico Cat contest was in November 2004, and it's been constantly growing and gaining popularity since then. It's held twice a year, and is a unique and unparallel project in haiku world.

Hopefully, there will be a book "Calico Cat International bilingual haiku contest: history and practice. Best haiku by poets from a hundred countries." published -- with all the winning and some of the other best haiku, commentaries, illustrated, and of a gift quality. I will begin working on it right after publishing the book "Prayer for Japan" (which is now at work).

You may read all the previous contests by following the Tags: calico cat contest ( it's at the end of the above post).