2010 Halloween Haiku Contest Winners

The 2010 Halloween Haiku Caption Contest was difficult to judge, and all the entries were fantastic. Thank you for captioning all those weird art pieces!  We’ll do it again sometime.

It was difficult to pick one, but to me the clear winner is FJ Bergmann (fibitz.com), for penning a gross little number inspired by the art piece, “Fountain of Worm.” Bergmann’s haiku has dynamic action, impending doom, good reference to the image, and great language use, all telling a unique story in just 17 syllables!:

FOUNTAIN OF WORM

quivering with need
undulating, gorged with blood
the gut villi wait

– FJ Bergmann

FJ wins a free trade paperback of the book, HE IS LEGEND, edited by Christopher Conlon for Tor Books.  I’ll deface my story in that book with my signature scrawl. Maybe draw some book-worms, even. And then to make up for that I’ll toss in an extra Arnzen book of some kind as a bonus.

I wasn’t planning on a 2nd place prize, but I really liked the unsettling suggestions evoked by Terrie Leigh Relf‘s entry for the drawing, “Angry Bird”, too, so she’s winning a free copy of Audiovile on CD:

ANGRY BIRD

so many ravens
gathering around my house
those eyes. . .those blue eyes

– TL Relf

We’ll have more contests like this in the future, so be sure to subscribe to The Goreletter so you don’t miss a chance.  In the mean time, check out everyone’s twisted haiku!  And do feel free to post your own captions, share dark poems, and add comments whenever you like on the gallery or photostream!  I appreciate it, and I think all the visitors to gorelets.com really do, too. — Mike Arnzen

p.s. Don’t forget to download the free goodies released on this site to celebrate Halloween this year:  a spooky digital wallpaper, and a new audio story set to music about, well, zombie mimes!

Halloween Haiku Contest 2010

HE IS LEGEND (Tor, 2010)

[Note: this contest is now closed to entries (though comments on the gallery are always welcomed, poetic or not). Winner announced soon. -MAA].

This one’s easy. Post a haiku poem related to one of the artpieces on my gallery. Just enter it in the “comments” field, along with your byline (name) and e-mail address. This will automatically publish the poem. All adult language will be censored, so please don’t use any — suggest and evoke, instead. Entries are due by Halloween (Oct 31st) at Midnight.

Arbitrary rule: I expect your haiku to be 3 lines long, in a 5-7-5 syllable pattern. No rhyme necessary. Can be humorous, horrific, or traditional in nature. You can enter up to three total. Anything more than that, and I’ll report you to the FCC as a perpetrator of spamku.

If I like your haiku best, you’ll get a signed copy of the Tor trade paperback edition of He Is Legend, a random horror gift from the Arnzen coffers, and your poem will appear in the next e-mail edition of The Goreletter.