Five winners will receive a packet of seeds. This is for fun, so talent is not a requirement to participate in the contest!
Haiku is a very terse form of Japanese poetry consisting of 17 syllables arranged in three lines: 5 syllables on the first line, 7 on the second, and 5 on the third.
Basho is the Japanese master this style of poetry, but the 5-7-5 structure of his poems are not retained when they are are translated into English. So to give you some examples haiku in English, the following two poems are by American poet Richard Wright. If you count the syllables, you'll see they are 5-7-5
Sleety
rain at night
Seasoning swelling turnips
With a tangy taste.
Heaps of
black
cherries
Glittering with drops of rain
In the evening sun.
And here's a haiku with a more humorous gardening theme written by me:
Tiny green aphids
You suck the life from my plants
Ortho brings you rest.
You can write a very good haiku in just a few minutes. (Or if you're like me, you can write a very bad one in the same amount of time.) Good or bad, I encourage you to give haiku a try.
And to close out the Summer gardening season, I'm going to give away a free packet of seeds to five lucky winners who submit a haiku with a gardening theme.
Humorous Gardening Haiku Contest Rules:
- You must submit your own work.
- Winning haiku must relate to gardening in some way, conform to 5-7-5 structure, and be in English.
- No "R" rated language or themes.
- You can submit as many haiku as you like.
- Only one winning entry will be awarded per person.
- Entries will be judged on cleverness and humor (But don't let quality stop you from submitting an entry, as you may still win.)
- Winners will receive one packet of seeds selected at random: Paul Robeson Tomato (Seeds of Change), Beefsteak Tomato (Baker Creek Seeds), Silver Queen Corn (Lake Valley Seed), Slenderette Bush Beans (Renee's Garden Seeds), Mignonette Alpine Strawberry (Renee's Garden Seeds).
- Winning entries will be published to this web site but authors retain all other rights if you care about that sort of thing.
- Contest ends on the first day of Fall (September 23, 2010)
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