Subject: the 5th Shiki Internet Haiku Contest Dear world haiku poets, Today, September 19 is the 99 th anniversary of the death of Masaoka Shiki. The 5th Shiki Internet Haiku Salon Contest draws near. The Shiki team volunteers will hold the following haiku contest, an annual Japanese style Kukai on the Internet. We welcome you to participate in it by composing and sending in your haiku, being one of the judges, and enjoying the entries. This contest is managed by the Shiki team, who organize the Shik Internet Haiku Salon site on a voluntary basis. We sincerely hope this new procedure works well, ensuring that the Shiki Salon site and the contest can be maintained well into the twenty-first century. Please understand that the Shiki team is implementing the new procedure in order to maintain the high standards of the contest and to avoid a work overloaded. And please pay special attention to the dates. ---------------------------------------------------- 1. Contest Procedure 1-1 Pre-registration is required. The contestant must register the name of the haiku author and his/her e-mail address. A special contest e-mail address has been created for this occasion. Interested participants should send e-mail to to register application. Each person should have only one address for his/her entry. How to register: Send e-mail to Subject of the email : toku-registration The message must include the author's name ( or pen name) and his /her e-mail address. It must be sent between September 23 , the Autumn equinox and Friday, October 13, 2000. After the pre-registration message is received, the participants will receive the auto-reply message. If the participant's e-mail address is not correct, the Shiki team will send a message to ask about it. Participants should not send haiku during this period. Please use this time for composition. 1-2　Toku Haiku poets who have registered their names and e-mail addresses should submit their entries between October 16 (Monday) and November 3 (the Culture Day in Japan) 2000, to 　toku@cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp - The theme words are "flowers" and "names of kinds of flowers, for example rose, lily, dandelion , etc." ( Masaoka Shiki loved flowers very much and he often painted them.) - Each haiku must contain at least one word from among the above theme words. (NOTICE: the plural form of the theme word is acceptable, but only noun forms will count as theme words.) * Masakoka Shiki loved flowers very much and he took pleasure in drawing fruit and plants. The Shiki team sincerely hopes that world haiku poets will enjoy composing haiku on flowers and will join the 5th Shiki Internet Haiku Contest. ichihatsu no ichirin shiroshi haru no kure Masaoka Shiki an iris whiter at twilight in spring translated by Kim Komurasaki - Entries are limited to three haiku per person. If two or more entrants share an e mail address, be sure to include the author's name with each haiku. - Previously unpublished (and unposted to Internet) haiku only. * Haiku entries will be sent to all contestants for judging after November 13 , but names will not be included with the haiku sent at this time. * The names of participants will be available on the WWW after the contest winner is announced. 1-3 Entries will be judged by the following rules: (1) The Shiki team will send contestants the list of all the haiku entries several days after November3. If you don't enter the contest, you won't be able to vote! (2) Each contestant will then select his or her favorite haiku from among the entries and return the choices (up to 5 haiku, which may not include his/her own haiku) to the Shiki team between November 13 and December 3 at the same contest address: toku@cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp (3) The most popular haiku will win the Shiki Haiku Prize. However, if a single haiku does not receive at least 5% of all the votes, the Shiki team will choose the most popular haiku and resend them to the contestants. A second selection will be held. This procedure will continue until the most popular haiku receives at least 5% of the votes. (4) The Shiki team hopes to announce the contest result on December 13, if the most popular haiku receives more than 5% of the votes. We want to have the final result WITHIN the 20th century!! (5) During the month after the Shiki Haiku Prize is decided, the Shiki team would like to collect criticism and discussion of the popular entries on the Shiki Mailing List and post them on the Shiki home page. So, we encourage all entrants to join the Shiki Mailing List if they haven't already. (6) The results of the balloting will be made known to all contestants. All or part of the entries contributed to the contest will be made into an anthology to be included in a magazine, and put on the Shiki WWW Home Page: http://cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp/~shiki/ or http://shiki.toward.co.jp/ 2. The Prize The Shiki team will welcome the winner of the contest to Matsuyama, Japan. The winner will be presented with a round trip ticket to Matsuyama from the airport nearest to him or her. (The upper limit is 200,000 yen. This present to the winner is valid for one year from the announcement of the result.) 3. Other Information Concerning copyright laws, we will assume that your participation in the contest indicates your agreement to your entry(/ies) being reprinted. 4. Inquiries Send your inquiries by email to ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- We look forward to meeting you in Matsuyama, Japan. -The Shiki team