Spectator Competition Winners: haiku book reviews

In Competition No. 3298, you were invited to provide a book review in three haiku. When I saw that the unofficial poet laureate of Twitter Brian Bilston had tweeted some haiku book reviews, I thought I’d challenge you to do something along the same lines.

The traditional Japanese haiku is a snapshot of a moment in time rendered in 17 syllables in three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables (though these rules have not always been slavishly observed by western poets). Or, as the incomparable Stanley J. Sharpless put it:

This is a haiku.
Five syllables, then seven.
Then five more. Got it?

Some entries incorporated references to the natural world, which is a hallmark of the haiku. And there was a streak of subversive humour too. The winners take £20. First up is Alex Steelsmith, who reviews haiku-master Basho’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

As the May wind blows,
Scattered blossoms of haiku
Emerge amid prose.