The 2011 Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards: Shortlist

We had a terrific response to our call for submissions to the Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards in 2011. To all who participated, thank you. The results of your efforts reveal a haiku publishing scene that is thriving and diverse. You have our admiration.

After much deliberation, the panelists are agreed on a shortlist of contenders that will move on to the final round. This was no small job—they received 79 books! Final results will be announced on April 17, National Haiku Poetry Day.

Award recipients will be selected from the following list:

Beyond the Reach of My Chopsticks: New and Selected Haiku; written by Fay Aoyagi, published by Blue Willow Press

Penguins/ Pingviner; written by Johannes Bjerg, published by Cyberwit

Distant Virga; written by Allan Burns, published by Red Moon Press

The River Knows the Way; edited by Cynthia Cechota, et al, published by Haiku Dubuque

Haiku Roadsign: Axle Contemporary; edited and designed by Matthew Chase-Daniel and Jerry Wellman, published by Axle Contemporary

A Narrow Road/ Uska Staza; written by Ljubomir Dragovic, published by Liber Press

Dreams Wander On: Contemporary Poems of Death Awareness; edited by Robert Epstein, published by Modern English Tanka Press

A New Resonance 7; edited by Dee Evetts and Jim Kacian, published by Red Moon Press

My Favorite Thing; written by Michael Ketchek, Bob Lucky and Lucas Stensland, edited by Stanford M. Forrester, published by Bottle Rockets Press

Capering Moons; written by Anatoly Kudryavitsky, published by Doghouse Books

Few Days North Days Few; written by Paul M., published by Red Moon Press 

St. John’s Wort; written by John Martone, published by Samuddo / Ocean

The Neighbours Are Talking: Haibun; written by Mike Montreuil, published by Bondi Studios/Baby Buddha Press

An Unmown Sky/ Nepokoseno Nebo; edited and translated by Durda Vukelic-Rozic, et al., published by Haiku Association Three Rivers

Things Being What They Are, written by John S. O’Connor, published by Deep North Press

The Future of Haiku: An Interview with Kaneko Tohta; trans. from the Japanese by the Kon Nichi Translation Group, published by Red Moon Press

Past All Traps; written by Don Wentworth, published by Six Gallery Press

Migratory birds/Zugfogel/Oiseau migrateurs/Aves migratorias—150 Haiku; written by Klaus-Dieter Wirth, published by Hamburger Haiku Verlag