Frogpond 34.3 • Autumn 2011 (pdf) - Haiku Society of America

Comments by Merrill Ann Gonzales and Paul Miller
Judging renku is different from judging other kinds of poetry.
The judges must take into consideration not only the poetic
value of each link, but also, and often more importantly,
how the members of the group interact with each other across
links, in addition to how they do or don’t (usually with good
reason) follow the format’s many traditions and rules. This
year’s submissions were interesting and exciting in all those
ways, and included both traditional and contemporary formats
that included many delightful links. We would like to thank all
the participants for the opportunity to read their work. While
the winning renku is a fairly traditional Nijuin, that was not
the reason we chose it. We felt a strong, playful rapport between
the poets, started nicely in the hokku and wakiku, and
then carried throughout the remainder of the verses. There
were a good variety of voices and tones, some nice seasonal
runs, and a pleasant expanse of topics. After careful examination
and discussion of all the submissions we have decided to
award the First Prize to Twelfth Night by Frank Williams and
Diana Webb. Our congratulations to the winners!
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