Thanks for asking me to judge these marvelous haikus. What a blast! Here’s what I’ve got:
Runners Up Categories (in no particular order):
You Rock!
Emeline Green:
Cowboys, shieks and Dukes
Are antique heros. Give me
Wang Everlasting.
Riveting!
Adler:
He is old pennies
and undead dust in my mouth:
Haemovore fetish.
AElfwyn:
Gold eyes gleam darkness
I wait to breathe death, throat bared
In you I see light
Laughed Out Loud!
Vix 626:
Vampires have parts
That are long and very white
And I don’t mean teeth
First Runner Up!
Rachel B:
Stalking silly girls
In darkness, ending their lives
I miss eating fruit
Should have worked out more
Now deathless and eternal
doughy midsection
Jennifer says, “Rachel, if you’ll either give Sarah your mailing information to send on to me, or go to my website at jenniferrardin.com and e-mail me the information, I’d like to personally send you a copy of Once Bitten, Twice Shy. Humor like that deserves a literal reward!”
And the Winner Is…
Cat Marsters:
I like vampires
Especially when
They fight back a bit
Jennifer says, “Cat, I picked yours because you might have been channeling my heroine, Jaz, when you wrote it. In fact, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it’s the last thing she thinks before she stakes a villainous vamp. Congratulations. I hope you enjoy reading the series as much as I’ve loved writing it!”
—Jennifer Rardin
Thanks to Jennifer for judging, Orbit Books for the prize and to the readers for cracking me up like DAMN today. Well played!
Cool, I’m a runner-up! *does a little jig* I’m definitely going to check out “Once Bitten, Twice Shy”—it sounds like an awesome book. 😆
Winning entry: nice.
Congratulations, winner!
(But it’s not haiku.)
I’m a runner up!
I’VE ARRIVED.
::links award page to entire e-mail address book::
Nice touch, LViolet.
Cat’s sleeping right now (silly England being in a different time-zone), but as a loyal friend and cp, I’m happy to accept the award on her behalf and give the acceptance speech she would’ve presented for the occasion.
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! OMG! WTF! OMG!! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
There. I think I’ve appropriately captured her reaction to the news, but we’ll have to see if I got all the nuances right. She does have that British accent, you know.
Pssst Violet,
Must be new Haiku.
*mounts soapbox, clears throat*
“Winning entry: nice.
Congratulations, winner!
(But it’s not haiku.)”
If you are referring to the syllable count, it’s actually closer to haiku than the others. Most Western syllables are longer than Japanese mora or onji (sound symbols). For example, “brought” is one syllable in English, but could be considered 2 or even 3 onji (br-ough-t). Hence, most English strict haiku is written as 3-5-3 or something similar to get the same feel.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku
And anyway, most haiku these days is written in freeform.
But to be strictly accurate, none of these are haiku, since haiku deals with nature and seasonal impressions. These would be senryu, or humanistic poetry in the haiku style.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senryu
*nods head, packs up soapbox, departs stage left*
Yes, I write haiku and senryu. Why do you ask?
That’s it, next time I’m gonna take lymerics for $500.
“Now deathless and eternal
doughy midsection”
Keyboard alert!!!!!!!!
Congrats to all!
Yes, Soni, that’s exactly what I was doing.
Actually I wrote it after a bottle of wine and could, therefore, no longer count.
But I wanna read the books! I read Sarah’s review and went, “Ooh! This sounds COOL!” I do love me a kickass heroine…
Me, I’m just glad that I won’t be thinking of more (Western) haikus instead of working on my WIP…
Congratulations, Cat and Rachel!
That tyrant, distance,
bites deep. Congrats to winners
in the right time zone!
🙂
Rachel was asleep at the wheel today, but I just hung up the phone with her, and she was thrilled!
She and I agreed that Cat’s poem is wonderful, because she manages in a mere three lines to lead the reader one direction and then totally surprise them with the reversal. Woot!