In 2000, John Bird and Janice Bostok (1942-2011) co-founded the Australian Haiku Society. Sadly, John passed away in May 2022 after many years spent promoting haiku, supporting haiku writers and encouraging the use of Australian subjects and seasonal references in haiku.

Every two years, the Australian Haiku Society conducts the John Bird Dreaming Award to honour John’s contribution to haiku. Entries for the 2022 award opened in October 2022, with the winners announced by the Society on 1 May 2023. The two judges for this year’s competition were Sandra Simpson and Louise Hopewell.

The contest attracted 663 entries from poets in 45 countries with the judges selecting their top three haiku for awards. A further four poems received an Honourable Mention. You can read the judges’ report here.

First place in the 2022 John Bird Dreaming Award went to Seren Fargo from the USA for her fine poem:

road trip
each day another web
spun in the mirror

Seren Fargo, USA, First Place

Seren’s delightful haiku captures the rhythm of the days passing on a road trip; driving with the company of a mysterious, unseen spider while traversing a web of highways and back roads. By evening, another day is relegated to the rear-view mirror. As Sandra Simpson said in the Judges’ Report, Seren’s plosive consonants help accentuate the ‘noir’ feel of this haiku. All of which makes this haiku a worthy winner.

As chance would have it, Second Place, Third Place and one of the Honourable Mentions went to poets from Canberra: Hazel Hall, Jan Dobb and Marietta McGregor. Here are their poems:

dog star dawn
the farmer’s whistle
far and wide

Hazel Hall, Australia, Second Place

casuarina wind
the whole wide sky
sailing south

Jan Dobb, Australia, Third Place

morning glory in his chorus butcherbird

Marietta McGregor, Australia, Honourable Mention

These haiku evoke the sounds of Australia through its people, flora and fauna; from the farmer’s assertive whistle to the distinctive sound of wind through casuarinas, to the butcherbird’s melodies. Individually, and collectively, these haiku portray the expanse of this country; a country where sound can carry unobstructed across the land.

Hazel, Jan and Marietta are all members of the Canberra writers’ group known as Haiku@The Oaks. As I’ve mentioned in a previous posting, this group has produced a chapbook titled The Ink Sinks Deeper. You can read about the book, and sample more of their writing, here.

Thank you to the Australian Haiku Society for running the 2022 contest and to Sandra and Louise for judging the entries. Congratulations to all the poets recognised in the awards and, especially, to Seren Fargo for winning First Place in the 2022 John Bird Dreaming Award.