Kikakuza Haibun
Contest - English Section
Dear Editor,
On behalf of
Kikakuza of which I am a member, I would like to request you to
kindly post a synopsis of the following notice of our Haibun
Contest in the next issue of your magazine or newsletter, and
encourage your members to enter. This is the first international
haibun contest to be launched in Japan, and we are hoping that
we might receive a warm response from all corners of the world.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in
touch with me. With best wishes.
Yours sincerely,
Nobuyuki Yuasa
Nyuasa88s@regalia.nir.jp
Kikakuza Haibun
Contest - English Section
Kikakuza is a group
of haikai (linked-verse) poets founded in 2005 in honour of
Kikaku (1661~1707), Basho’s celebrated disciple. We wish to help
revive the tradition of haibun which gradually went out of
favour after the Meiji Restoration. For this purpose, we have
created a Haibun Contest and invite foreign writers to enter.
The contest will be judged by Nobuyuki Yuasa and Stephen Henry
Gill. The results of the contest will be announced in the
Kikakuza Bulletin and on its homepage, and awards will be sent
directly to the winners. All entries must meet the following
conditions.
Conditions of
Entry
1. Subject:
Free, but discretion must be used to avoid slander and
obscenity.
2. Style: No
restrictions, but special attention must be paid to honour the
spirit of haikai.
3. Length:
Not more than 30 lines, each line of not more than 80 spaces
long.
4. Haiku: At
least one haiku should be included.
5. Format:
Print on a sheet of A4 size paper and write at the bottom your
name and your pen name if you have any, together with your
address and telephone number. Your privacy will be strictly
protected, and the judges will not see your names.
6. Deadline:
All entries should reach the following address by 31 January
2009. Entries received after this date will not be accepted.
Kikakuza (c/o Kifuu Futagami), 117-1 Nakogi, Hadano-shi,
Kanagawa-ken, Japan 257-0024
7. Entry Fee:
All entrants residing in Japan are kindly requested to pay 2000
yen into the following postal money order account and send
Kikakuza a receipt (or a copy of it) together with your haibun.
Postal Money Order: 00250-4-95332 Kikaku no Kai
No entry fee will be requested from those living abroad. We
cannot accept personal checks because it is so costly to process
them.
8. Questions:
All questions should be sent to the Kikakuza address above or by
fax to the following number: 0463-82-6315.
9. Sample haibun:
Sample haibun can be read at the following sites:
http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/category/haibun/ (click
‘longer haibun’ page)
http://www.sosui.wordpress.com (both in English
and Japanese)
http://contemporaryhaibunonline.com/pages.all
