THF Monthly Kukai Voting Ballot July 2020
This month’s theme:
social justice
Voting for The Haiku Foundation Monthly Kukai
Shortly after the conclusion of the submission period, an anonymous ballot comprising all submitted poems on that month’s theme will be posted to Troutswirl (The Haiku Foundation blog) on the THF site. Any reader of this ballot is eligible to vote for their favorite poems at this time. A voter may vote for up to five (5) poems per theme. A top vote will receive 5 points, a second-place vote 4 points, a third-place vote 3 points, a fourth-place vote 2 points, and a fifth-place vote 1 point.
Please use the Kukai voting form below to enter your selections, and then press Submit to cast your votes. No other votes will be recognized or honored. All votes must be signed (that is, no “anonymous” votes will be accepted, and the Submit button will not be available until both Name and Email fields are filled in), and no poet may vote for his or her own work. No commentary upon the poems will be accepted or published. Votes will be accepted from the appearance of the ballot on the 18th of that month through midnight of the 24th of that month. Readers may vote only once per ballot. Administrators of the kukai are ineligible to vote.
The Ballot
| 1 | a little boy washed up on foreign shores . . . all lives matter | |
| 2 | a river enters a river gender neutral | |
| 3 | a single drop slides down her hot cheek – food bank line | |
| 4 | another lockdown morning more new bird songs – other lives matter | |
| 5 | arbitrarily, violation of their rights a fallen beehive. | |
| 6 | Big problems to solve Our plates often piled too high, Sacrifice required | |
| 7 | black white the shadows between | |
| 8 | black clouds rolling . . . the light over the raised hands above the masked faces | |
| 9 | bowing together to the wild wind leaves of grass | |
| 10 | branches open to the sky . . . oxygen | |
| 11 | city beggar the faded tattoo only skin deep | |
| 12 | closed poppy I re-examine my blind I | |
| 13 | coloured maid’s lower pay for not being a white male did god make us equal ? | |
| 14 | constantly changing the migration paths – passive-aggressive moon | |
| 15 | cookies and lemonade . . . children ask us to pay what we can for Black Lives Matter | |
| 16 | corona springtime opens old discrepancies to new awareness | |
| 17 | counting the spikes of his barbed wire tattoo – so many lost years | |
| 18 | court room . . . how white the shirt of the rapist | |
| 19 | court room . . . the new shape of an old bruise | |
| 20 | crowded protest . . . a single child holds his own hand | |
| 21 | deprived area the rubbish bins overflow | |
| 22 | double rainbow she counts out six shrimp each | |
| 23 | equal rights: the same penumbral lunar eclipse | |
| 24 | even in full sunlight . . . always too dark | |
| 25 | falling statues the gravity of conscience | |
| 26 | feeding the pigeons off his bread wedge the beggar in the corner | |
| 27 | fireworks legal and not blaring squad car | |
| 28 | first day of school the teacher cuts an apple into twelve parts | |
| 29 | five star restaurant – scribbled on the man’s sign “Money for food, please” | |
| 30 | food desert the last banana sliced four ways | |
| 31 | food kitchen black beans, white rice served together | |
| 32 | foodbank the lines on her face | |
| 33 | forgone vows, flesh fuels hatred of misconstrued truths burn the past anew | |
| 34 | free education – girls get a new laptop | |
| 35 | from the hilltop camp the stuffed chair lands upside down | |
| 36 | he ignores them marching on television not his problem | |
| 37 | his eyes in constant motion black jogger | |
| 38 | honour killing the stuffing spills out of the tattered doll | |
| 39 | hot summer nights the dream that refuses to let me sleep | |
| 40 | in the beach’s midday sun the tourist sweats – the vendor too | |
| 41 | in the classroom – sharing the globe with a refugee | |
| 42 | in the colored drawings, children’s nightmares Scenes of the “favela” | |
| 43 | in the holy land all are welcome but the oppressed ones | |
| 44 | inclusiveness showers of Sinter Klaas peppernuts everywhere in Holland | |
| 45 | kohl lined eyes grandma still can’t see black is beautiful | |
| 46 | little boy carrying his sign let me live | |
| 47 | lockdown lifted – vowing to murder the cereal browser | |
| 48 | many people many races One family | |
| 49 | marine layer dry coughs from the homeless camp | |
| 50 | marshy land…….. withered teak leaves – beneath, creeping cobra | |
| 51 | maybe I need him tomorrow sunbeam in a jar | |
| 52 | mercy me everyone deserves the blue sky | |
| 53 | misty morning the babel of office cleaners at the end of their shift | |
| 54 | monopoly no longer counting the zeroes | |
| 55 | monsoon shower . . . my goldfish from a bowl back to the pond | |
| 56 | Mountain laurel and dogwood blooming – bloodstain teardrops on every white petal | |
| 57 | my fist old and white but raised with yours | |
| 58 | national anthem a white cop takes a knee on a black man’s neck | |
| 59 | nature holds the key to equal opportunities – all flowers bloom | |
| 60 | neurotypical fragility autistic lives denied | |
| 61 | night school the lingering weight of gunny sacks | |
| 62 | no longer guarding the defunct statue – dead-headed iris | |
| 63 | no sticks or stones hate graffiti hits the target | |
| 64 | not (just) a frozen water: (ice) | |
| 65 | old man’s blood weeps red passing badges look away now the world sees all | |
| 66 | older cars filled with all their possessions children and dogs | |
| 67 | on a gator’s back an egret preens midday sun | |
| 68 | pass the file midday meals – compulsory | |
| 69 | patriot statue a bronze head rolls to a stop | |
| 70 | perennials how social change spans lifetimes | |
| 71 | Privilege is blind. Disparity encircles. Justice is amiss. | |
| 72 | racism – the child draws a white rose with a black pencil | |
| 73 | rapist challenges his death sentence she dies a hundred times each day | |
| 74 | refugee camp a family shares their last injera | |
| 75 | refugee shelter a few little boys invoke all the Marvel heroes | |
| 76 | removing a fallen bough let’s go snail | |
| 77 | rich or poor we need to understand this earth is shared | |
| 78 | right field we all view the same game through the chain link fence | |
| 79 | seahorse moon the way he is left holding the babies | |
| 80 | She works fifteen hours on her feet – Starbucks, Walgreens – and smiles all day long. | |
| 81 | sidewalk poppies the stains that won’t fade | |
| 82 | sleep won’t come – winter rain on the roof of my car | |
| 83 | social injustice . . . the cure must start with me | |
| 84 | social justice in the Eurasian jay’s pupil twilight | |
| 85 | social justice keynote speaker’s talk shapes the mask | |
| 86 | social Justice – through the needle hole only the elephant | |
| 87 | songbirds mute as eyes probe for their nest – they dare not protest | |
| 88 | survival technique – a woman gorging with dogs from a garbage dump. | |
| 89 | tears in eyes the refugee girl wipes the cloud | |
| 90 | tending our community garden Earth | |
| 91 | the crowding potted on the deck black petunias | |
| 92 | the hateful alliteration of the knee is a new noose | |
| 93 | the homeless man strokes the poster model chilling breeze | |
| 94 | The hot dog vendor. (Make me one with everything.) The panhandler. | |
| 95 | the ICE cream man handing out visas | |
| 96 | the parent bird feeds each open mouth enough, so simple | |
| 97 | through a hole in the pocket – the narcan I never used | |
| 98 | through razor wire the refugee boy’s thin shadow | |
| 99 | thrown out of the palace by his son – the land grabber | |
| 100 | toasting with wine from the same hand man and mosquito | |
| 101 | tribal man each foot in a puddle under a scorching sun | |
| 102 | urban summer no child should pray for less thirst | |
| 103 | voter fraud – I plead guilty to impostor syndrome | |
| 104 | waiting room TV the protest for social justice running on mute | |
| 105 | wheat field this black child grew up don’t shoot | |
| 106 | when weeds can be proud to not be roses to not be weeds | |
| 107 | white privilege at the bird feeder albino squirrel | |
| 108 | Who made the call About man walking in peace Then shot on the back | |
| 109 | winding river – bridges are better than walls | |
| 110 | Zero Discrimination Day the broadcast assistant hums “Black or white” |
Kukai Results
On the first day of the following month, results of the tally of the kukai will be announced. The top vote-getters as voted by readers will be posted, along with the number of points each poem tallied, and each poem’s authorship will be revealed at this time. Winners will be invited to select from a list of prizes provided by The Haiku Foundation. The theme for the new month will be announced at the same time, and the process repeated. Poems remain the copyrighted property of their authors, but The Haiku Foundation reserves the right to publish, display and archive all submitted poems for this and other purposes at its discretion.
Congratulations to all our participants!
This Post Has 9 Comments
Comments are closed.
Dear Alan Summers,
I’m sorry to answer you briefly, but, as I told you, I don’t speak well your native language. It is your right to believe in the precepts of cognitive biology and you „consider that humans are just part of the overall animal collective”.
There are other theories in the field, just as attractive. People can also be cosmic, religious beings etc and I agree that they must preserve their humanity in all circumstances.
From the fact that I have expressed an opinion on writing a haiku, you cannot suggest that I love less the animals and plants, that I am an inter-species racist and that I believe that humans are above all other life forms on the planet. It’s too much !
I agree with the concept of “universal justice” for the human species and co-species on earth, which you use here. I hope you are also thinking about the mineral regnum !
I enjoy your declared bio-activism, but I have been practicing this for a long time in my world.
Best regards,
Dan Iulian
Dear Dan Iulian,
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No worries and thank you for your response. The great thing about haikai poetry, for many, whether readers or writers or both is that we get to look closely, and appreciate all living things.
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I hope you enjoyed my commentary a few years back, as judge of THE IAFOR VLADIMIR DEVIDÉ
HAIKU AWARD, which forms part of The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) conference each year?
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A COMMENTARY ON JUSTICE BY ALAN SUMMERS
https://iaforhaikuaward.org/commentary-on-justic-by-alan-summers/
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The International Academic Forum (IAFOR):
https://iafor.org
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deepest respect,
Alan
What about metaphors?
Not metaphor in haiku, but haiku as metaphor.
I „live” in another language and I don’t speak English well enough to make polemic dispute. I use Google translate . I agree with your wikipedia or dictionary definitions (and not only !) for social (in) justice. Indeed, many of the haikus follow the proposed theme of the kukai. However, social justice refers to people, not the animal or plant regnum, in which many haikus are circumscribed. At the limit, we can discover there are in some haikus allusions, aphoristic attempts to the theme, fabulistic (in)justice applied to animals and plants etc. However, haiku is simplicity, par excellence, it does not allow linguistic, metaphysical eccentricities etc ….. here is what I tried to say … I could go on, but I hope you get the idea.
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Dear Dan Iulian
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Thank you for your extensive reply, it is deeply appreciated.
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I personally consider that humans are just part of the overall animal collective:
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/humans-are-animals-too-a-whirlwind-tour-of-cognitive-biology
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And so, fascinating aspects, are that many animals are social, and the non-human animals feel empathy, fear, and also persecution from human ‘animals’. Also humans have other animals as pets, and some humans suffer severe mental health illness, and are in turn persecuted if they struggle to look after their ‘pets’.
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I guess we too often think of humans as above all other life forms on the planet, and that only we can give justice and also suffer ‘injustice’.
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I think the covid-19 pandemic has revealed a lot about human selfishness and self-absorption, and also the injustice, direct and indirect, violently thrust onto other animals.
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I think it’s time to both look deeply into social injustice for humans, but extend it to both other animal co-species, and even our non-animal co-species on the small planet.
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a dog all smiles
can’t wait to say hello
we talk secretly
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Alan Summers
From The Letter D is Missing (muri-bun)
The “Surrealism as Truth series” in association with “the dogs of name.”
https://weirdlaburnum.wordpress.com/2019/09/09/the-letter-d-is-missing/
Very few haikus respecting the kukai theme !
Social (in)justice takes many forms: unequal access to food/food deserts; unfair/unavailable housing; victims fleeing violence/war rejected by all; racial inequities; patriarchy; a biased justice system; racial profiling and police bias; unequal access to quality education ….I could go on, but I hope you get the idea. I see many of these themes addressed in a variety of individual ways. Most would qualify as senryu but I don’t think that would disqualify them from addressing the theme.
Peggy’s incredibly useful response reminds me I did a judge’s report on justice for the IAFOR Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award in 2016:
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A COMMENTARY ON JUSTICE BY ALAN SUMMERS
https://iaforhaikuaward.org/commentary-on-justic-by-alan-summers/
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I did get to hear that people initially struggled with the idea of justice in haiku, although Japanese haiku poets pre-WWII with the New Rising Haiku group etc… have long addressed this issue.
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I hope my judge’s report can help a little?
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warmest regards,
Alan Summers
cofounder, Call of the Page
In addition to The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), a research organisation based in Japan which encourages interdisciplinary discussion, and facilitating intercultural awareness, approaching me to be a judge for their haiku contest on their conference theme of justice:
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The Theme of Justice in haiku
https://area17.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-theme-of-justice-in-haiku.html