Morioka is the capital city of Iwate Prefecture in the northern part of Honshu Island, Japan. The Morioka International Haiku Contest was introduced in 2019 to mark the 130th anniversary of Morioka attaining city status.

The 6th Contest, conducted in 2024, was judged by Michael Dylan Welch and Toshio Kimura. The Contest attracted a total of 2,408 submissions, including 776 entries in the English-language section.

My thanks go to Michael Dylan Welch for awarding one of his six Honourable Mentions to the following haiku of mine:

dinner for two
the stars in the sky
grow brighter

The Contest organisers kindly sent me a Certificate and a copy of the booklet showing all the awarded poems. You can read the booklet of the Morioka Haiku Contest here.

Michael Dylan Welch has also made the English Section results, together with Japanese translations and the judges’ comments, available on his Graceguts website. You can read them here.

As it happens, I wrote ‘dinner for two‘ during the 2024 Haiku Down Under conference which was conducted via Zoom in August 2024. The various presentations and workshops provided many prompts and ideas for writing.

A selection of haiku written during the conference has since been published in A Sensory Journey: Haiku Down Under Anthology 2024, edited by Carole Harrison and Sue Courtney.

The haiku of mine that appears in the Anthology is the following tongue-in-cheek offering:

no need
to freshen my breath . . .
Zoom meeting

If you would like to participate in the next Morioka International Haiku Contest, you will be able to find the submission details here.

Information about the Haiku Down Under conference can be found here. If you would like to purchase a copy of the 2024 Haiku Down Under Anthology, you can do so here.