Centennial High School
Champaign, Illinois
April 2010

HAIKU CUT: A Matching Contest

HAIKU CUT Favorites

Centenanial High School art teacher Stacey Gross and librarian, Cynthia Helms, applied for and received a grant from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership to host a series of workshops on Japanese arts including raku pottery, koto music, calligraphy and haiku poetry.

Dr. Randy Brooks was invited to Centennial High School to conduct workshops on the art of reading and writing haiku with interested students from across the school. Following the writing and editing workshops, there was a matching contest with the student haiku. We called the contest "HAIKU CUT" with teams competing for haiku book prizes.

Grand champion haiku:

late summer night
we sneak out
just to talk

Centennial High School
Champaign, Illinois
April 2010

HAIGA CUT: A Matching Contest

HAIGA CUT Favorites

Dr. Brooks was also invited to conduct workshops on the art of haiga—which combines paintings or photographs with haiku with students in Ms. Gross' advanced photography class. Following the haiga reading and editing workshops, there was a matching contest with the student haiga.

Kukai - a playful haiku contest, in which the goal is to only make positive comments about the haiku and not a critical analysis nor workshop. It is typically anonymous with readers sharing favorites. A haiku is not born until it is loved by a reader. On Friday, April 16, participants met in the library for a kukai feature student work.

Millikin student, Aubrie Cox, assisted with all workshops and the final kukai competition.

Here is the grand champion haiga:

Haiku Cut 2010 was funded by the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.