I wanted to mention Daniel because of a very cool poetry competition he created in 1995, called Head to Head Haiku (and the related form, Toe to Toe Tanka). From Daniel’s description, it’s a very intense competition in which the judges have about 30 seconds to make a decision on which of two poets go through into the next round. He said one of the most remarkable features of the contest was the silence and focus the develops in an audience as the event progresses.

We’re planning to run a Head to Head Haiku competition later on in the year so we’ll see if we can get the same level of focus here in Canberra.

Meanwhile, this was the only video I could find, which is a battle (between Jonica and Tazuo Yamaguchi) rather than the sort of competition I described, but it still gives you a good idea of the style. Check it out and let me know if you’d like to have a try at it!