GRAND PRIX For Rose (John Parsons, UK)
HIGHLY COMMENDED As If It Does So Just For Me (Barbara Taylor, Australia); Untitled (Ion Codrescu, Romania); Close Encounters (Bamboo Shoot, UK)
HONORABLE MENTIONS Wanting (Philippa Yaa de Villiers, South Africa); Untitled (Zinovy Y Vayman, USA); The Ark (Angelee Deodhar, India); Last Wish (Jo Pacsoo, UK); Untitled (Valeria Simonova, Italy); April Gusts (Luce Pelletier, Canada)
TOTAL: 90 entries. JUDGES: Nobuyuki Yuasa & Stephen Henry Gill
CEREMONY: April 4th. The Grand Prix-winning piece was read aloud at a small ceremony held at the temple of Jogyoji 上行寺 in Isehara, where Basho’s disciple Kikaku’s grave is located. A cherry-tree was flowering and a lark was singing overhead.
READ ON: Click the page link at top right of top page entitled “Kikakuza ’09 Winning Haibun”, in order to read the top four entries. If you are accessing via Contemporary Haibun Online, first click the picture of hailstones at the top and then you’ll get the page menu.
Icebox 
The four prize-winning entries are now posted for you to read on a separate page (top right, marked – NEW!). Just click there. If you are coming to the Icebox via another link, first click on the picture of hailstones at top of this page to bring up the page menu (in orange, top right).
I’ve just posted these on the new issue of contemporary haibun online along with a link to your hailhaiku site. Have a look and let me know whether anything is amiss. We’d like to also post Bamboo Shoot’s piece, but I don’t think that Jim Kacian has yet secured his/her permission.
Cheers,
Ray Rasmussen
managing editor, CHO
The Letter (abbreviated version)
Well I just wanted to say hello to you
Understand me, please
For the First and The Last Time I Wrote a Poem
The Greatest Poem of All
You and Me
Please forgive me for this poem being so short
Even the title is longer than the poem itself
I told you
“I’m not good at writing!”
What kind of Ikebana would it be
two of us in Japanese script?