Alan Summers — 

Touchstone Award Winner

.

Alan Summers is a recipient of a Touchstone Individual Poem Award for 2016 for his poem

house clearance
room by room by room
my mother disappears

It first appeared in Blithe Spirit 26.1

Blithe Spirit (journal of the British Haiku Society):
http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk/journal/


From the panel of judges:

“When I read haiku, I’m looking for an unexpected view on the well-known. I’m curious to learn about an open secret (after Robert Spiess). I’m looking for a simple (but not banal) and lucid language that expresses something extraordinary within the ordinary, something which I never read before in that way as well as something that is of beauty beyond time. ‘house clearance’ represents the pure power of haiku. Layers of meaning ascending from deeper layers of the mind (‘room by room by room’) in relation to existential truth (‘my mother disappears’). Perhaps one finds a human contradiction: memories can only get preserved vividly after “clearance.”

“An emotional and vivid image that brings sadness at first reading while effectively pointing out that taking away the physical doesn’t remove the memory.”

Alan was one of five winners for the individual haiku category out of a record 660 entries.

More information about the Touchstone Awards: https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2017/04/30/commentaries-for-the-2016-touchstone-awards/