Shun-hai ⛱️ Tanka Judge rira Award
Works such as haiku, tanka, senryu, and novels reflect the heart of the author, and poetry in particular feels like the person themselves.
Min-hai is a place where we praise each other's good points.
Although we are in the role of judges, we are not tanka teachers or anything of the sort. Precisely because we are ordinary people, we intend to find the heart hidden within the works, and rather than focusing on technique, we want to use our own sensibilities to discover the light that only that person can bring out.
Individuality that only that person can express, a unique perspective, and emotions or scenes that appeal to us beyond words. As I selected the poems, I felt that I had chosen tanka that possessed these qualities.
There are many other wonderful tanka filled with heart. Please use your own sensibilities to give your own awards to the works you like, and convey your feelings of 'I love this💓' to them.
Honorifics have been omitted within the award certificates.
👑 1st Place 👑
The weight I can only name as love,
I release with one hand at a convenience store in the pale night.
Hisui-san
Love has no weight, yet there is certainly something heavy there. The more you think about it, the more painful it becomes, and eventually, that feeling becomes a weight that dwells in a corner of your heart. It is something you cannot resist no matter what, and that is precisely why it becomes more painful and more precious.
After all, you 'don't want to name it' anything but love. That heavy weight is the sustenance for thinking of you, and even if it is painful, it is not something that can be rationalized; it is surely an instinct.
The night where the pale blue is clear feels somewhat dignified and accompanied by loneliness. I find myself drawn as if by suction to a convenience store glowing in the middle of the night, wandering around aimlessly without buying anything. When I am alone, the weight of love increases even more. If I release that weight I can no longer bear onto the shelves of the convenience store, will someone else pick it up?
I want to set down the helplessness, the preciousness, and the pain to become light-hearted. On the other hand, I want to feel the weight of what I love. I felt the scene so deeply, as if I were being sucked into the world of that convenience store at night, due to the contradictory nature of that love and the high level of sensibility and expressive power that only Hisui-san, who described love as weight, could possess.
👑 2nd Place 👑
Staring at the blazing sky, it eventually becomes twilight,
Tracing the outlines of what I lost with a grating sound.
Zero no Kami-san
I think 'Enten' (blazing sky) is a Japanese word that perfectly expresses the heat. The intense heat of summer is truly a blazing sky, as if the heavens are breathing out flames to burn the earth to a crisp, making one hesitate even to breathe. There is a 'me' staring blankly at nothing in the scorching sunlight. Perhaps while sitting still and watching from a window or an open space like the beach, the twilight hour arrives before one even realizes it.
'Zari-zari' (gritty)—it is sweet, sour, and bittersweet like the lemon in the image from Zero-san's article, something that cannot be chewed like sand. There is something with a gritty texture in my heart, as if something is missing, something is lacking, and what has been lost has created a gaping void.
I cannot help but be bothered by what is missing. Even though it is impossible for everything to be fulfilled, I cannot help but be bothered. Yet, I trace the outline of the place where that unreachable thing once was, lovingly and perhaps a little painfully. There isn't really an outline there, but the 'outline' is likely the evidence that something precious, which should have been there, did indeed exist even if it is gone now.
Whether it is love or death, it doesn't matter. With a gritty sensation, you convey the sense of loss at the end of summer through words that only Zero-san can express. The more I read, the more the outline of this poem becomes visible; I truly felt that the title 'Magician of Words' (coined by Izayoi-san) suits you well.
The way you handle words, unique to Zero-san who also publishes books of Tanka, is masterful in how it enters the heart and stimulates those gritty parts.
👑 3rd Place 👑
Slowly, while you are not looking,
The tomato and I begin to rot
Watari Niihara-san
Tomatoes ripen red under the strong sunlight. The sight of green tomatoes gathering the sun's rays and slowly ripening into red is just like the growth of love. Perhaps the overflowing love is packed into the bright red tomato that has ripened and grown larger as feelings for someone are gradually accumulated and nurtured.
However, that is only because you are there. If you do not accept it, the tomato will ripen to the point of splitting. If it continues to ripen, it has no choice but to soften, melt, and rot.
Focusing on the rotting rather than the ripening along with the tomato overlaps with the languor and sentimentality of the end of summer. The end of a summer romance is strangely poignant and bittersweet. The tomato and I are the only ones rotting and melting away,
I was drawn to the scene where the ennui permeates so smoothly, despite being written so casually.
👑 4th Place 👑
On a midsummer day, the slightly sticky donut's
Hollow center reveals no light
Aoi Hana-san
This kind of metaphor might basically be my preference.
A donut that is melting and sticky—meaning it is coated in chocolate or sugar, making it difficult to hold. There is a hollow in the center of that donut, and peering through it, there is a darkness so deep that no light can be seen. From words like 'sticky' and 'cannot see,' a melancholy atmosphere and the sensation of having something gritty in one's chest are conveyed.
It is not the daytime when the summer sun beats down, but the world of twilight turning into night. Just as Sei Shonagon said in 'The Pillow Book' that 'summer is (best at) twilight,' there is something about the twilight hours when the summer heat fades that attracts people. The magic hour when the sky is dyed orange after the sun sets is also something often seen in summer.
The dimness where no light can be seen even when peering through feels like anxiety about the future of the hand holding the donut. Rather than chasing a light that cannot be grasped even when reaching out, it feels as if one has already given up somewhere.
Also, since Aoi Hana-san's second tanka is 'My sea responds to the sign that says zero meters above sea level in summer,' the donut also looked like the shape of a zero. The third tanka mentions 'white night.' These three poems are connected somehow; I am at the zero point and cannot see the light yet, but far beyond that, there is a faint glimmer. I felt encouraged by such a story, that no matter what darkness lies ahead, one can eventually see the light.
👑 5th Place 👑
It's your fault that I'm melting
Even ice cream knows how to read the room
Shichisan
I take my hat off to Shichisan's sense for turning the feelings of ice cream into a tanka. Surely, ice cream would want to be eaten deliciously before it melts. If it's cup ice cream, you can scoop it up even if it melts, but if it's a popsicle, it will drip and fall to the ground. It might get all over your clothes. If you sigh, 'Oh man,' after dropping it yourself, the ice cream surely wouldn't be happy about that.
But the cute thing about this ice cream is that it says it melted not because of the heat, but because of the two of you being so hot and heavy. Looking at Shichisan's illustration, the boy is eating a strawberry popsicle and the girl is eating a cider popsicle. The boy's sandals are blue, and the girl's are pink. I wonder if they are eating each other's favorite flavored ice cream.
A burning summer love can melt even ice cream. No, the ice cream itself reads the atmosphere between the two and melts away, thinking (*ﾉωﾉ) Kyaa💕. What an adorable ice cream. Moreover, the fact that it's slightly assertive is also good. Perhaps it's possible that when two people eat ice cream during the most exciting early stage of a new romance, the ice cream might just read the room and melt on its own.
👑 6th Place 👑
Suddenly blooming like fireworks
A love where only the landing point is invisible
Ricochet-san
There is such a thing as the moment you fall in love. It could be a sudden gesture or a casual word. There is love at first sight, seeing an unexpected side of someone, or experiencing unexpected kindness. If you compare the feeling of uncontrollable emotions bursting out at that moment to the instant a summer firework is launched and explodes, there could be no more precise words than these.
However, where will that love land? Perhaps you fell in love with someone who already has a partner. There are long-distance relationships and forbidden loves. A love with no visible future is fruitless, but love is something that happens regardless of your own will. A love with no visible landing point is anxious and unreliable, and it wouldn't be strange if it changed at any time. However, even if you cannot find a landing point, there is no way to stop love.
'A love where only the landing point is invisible'—I was completely taken by this smooth and excellent expression. If the landing point for both love and life is hard to see, I at least want to hope that I can land in a place with no regrets.
*7th place and below are listed in order.
Without ever being borrowed by anyone, the letters on the spine are clear, with the cicadas buzzing in the distance.
Hakuka Hayashi
To be 'sayakeshi' means to be clear and distinct. There is a book sitting quietly in the back of the library, never having been borrowed by anyone. Since it hasn't been read much, it has almost no scratches or fingerprints, and the spine remains pristine.
In a library so quiet that you can hear the cicadas buzzing in the distance, that book, which seems as if it has never met anyone, looks as though it were waiting to be found. It is as if 'I' and that book locked eyes, and I felt drawn to it, perhaps picking it up to borrow it on a whim.
Sometimes, when you pick up a book casually, you encounter one that makes you feel, 'This is it!' Perhaps something I am seeking is written there.
I love the atmosphere of libraries, but I haven't been to one in a long time. My memories of the quiet library I frequented as a student were tickled, and that unique scent and sense of nostalgia came back to me, making me feel as if I were actually there right now.
Like summer vegetables growing at an uncontrollable speed, my dreams expand here and there.
naomi
At my parents' house, many summer vegetables used to grow in the garden during the summer. My father grew them all by himself, and we were the ones who ate them. I remember his back as he went out to the garden every day, sweating as he took care of the vegetables.
The summer vegetables, my father's creations, became more endearing the more they were cared for, growing glossy and lush. My father must have been excited, imagining the joy of harvesting them, the dining table surrounded by them, and the smiles of his family.
I think the feelings of the person who grew them are packed into the ripe summer vegetables, which is why they taste even better. Packed with sunlight and affection, these summer vegetables, though misshapen, are as beautiful as if they were stuffed to the brim with dreams and the future.
I love the honest, straightforward, and smooth flow of words and rhythm. Just as the summer vegetables across the field are swelling rapidly, I am sure that your dreams will also grow rapidly, and one day you will be able to taste the best flavor when they come true.
The calendar has remained stopped since that day; summer in the bedroom where the master is no more.
akariko-san
Stopped, and gone. From these words alone, I can see the figure of the poet standing alone in front of a room where time has stood still. The humid room, filled with silence, is empty, with only a multitude of memories left behind.
Because the calendar remains stopped, there is the scent of the room left exactly as it was while they were alive. Even if you usually pass by it, there are times when you are swallowed by a wave of memories that comes upon you in an unguarded moment.
Scent is something strongly tied to memories. In that back view, which seems to be shedding tears without a sound, the voice of the cicada, living its life to the fullest, echoes with a certain sadness; I felt a deep sense of scene in this very beautiful snapshot.
On a summer night, the sunflowers wither with a droop,
a feeling as if one memory has gone missing.
Shun-san
Sunflowers usually have an image of being full of energy, soaking up the sunlight. But these sunflowers are in the night, showing us a scene different from their daytime appearance. It is also nice that the name 'Shun' is woven into the 'shun' (drooping) sound of them wilting.
The poet's perspective, turning their eyes to sunflowers wilting in the darkness, is sharp. Sunflowers at night are somewhat ephemeral, and since they are wilting, it may be that summer is drawing to a close.
Facing a life coming to an end and a summer drawing to a close, the scene of feeling down as the sentiment that a memory has gone missing sprouts is perfect for the end of summer. Because it is a 'feeling' as if something is missing, a delicate lingering tone that feels lonely, even if not explicitly so, resonates.
The sparkler scattered, saying it was the last one,
the light just as it was became the night sky.
Yunagi Haruka-san
Flashy fireworks are fun, of course, but what adorns the finale is the sparkler. The small, pale light visible in the darkness, the gentle sound of the sparks, and the faint flickering make one feel strangely at ease.
The moment the sparkler drops, it becomes pitch black and silence returns to the surroundings. When you look up, there are the stars shining. Just like the sparkler from a moment ago. Perhaps the sparkler didn't disappear, but became a star in the night sky.
The expression 'became the night sky' has a casually beautiful ring to it. If we could launch stars into the night sky every time we lit a sparkler, then even if there were a love that vanished along with the sparkler, it might become a star and shine there forever. It makes me have such romantic daydreams.
Before I knew it, the cactus stopped pricking
I had assumed you were strong
aeu-san
Cacti naturally have thorns; these thorns serve to protect them and also play roles in temperature regulation and moisture absorption. If a cactus did not have these protective thorns, it would be quite difficult for it to survive.
aeu-san uses this cactus as a metaphor for a mother. Even if it is for the sake of the child, a mother who offers bitter advice is often seen as nagging by the child. However, as such a mother ages, she pricks less and less.
That nagging, strong mother is no longer there. A mother who grows old and frail is like a cactus that has lost its thorns. Looking at her hunched, thin back, we realize that we had received so much love from our mother.
The moment we discover the love we could not see, the film of our assumptions is peeled away, and a new perspective opens up. It was a gentle tanka that makes the love contained within and the regret for not having noticed it come into view ever so softly.
🔻 Click here for the upcoming schedule
