Local artist and poet wins international haiku award

HAIKU WINNER: This collage by Annette Makino is made from painted and torn Japanese washi papers. Featuring a view of the Klamath River, it incorporates her winning one-line haiku. 

MAD RIVER UNION, ARCATA, CA, APRIL 21, 2021

On April 17, Arcata artist and poet Annette Makino was awarded one of the highest honors for haiku in English, a Touchstone Award from the Haiku Foundation. 

Announced on International Haiku Poetry Day, the award recognizes the best individual poems published the previous year.

Makino wrote her winning one-line haiku while on a creative retreat at the Klamath River in Orleans last summer. It reads:

long before language the S of the river

Makino has a business, Makino Studios, selling her art and haiku in the form of cards and calendars in stores and online. A mixed media artist, she creates both Japanese watercolors and Japanese-inspired collages

She said, “I’m truly thrilled to get this recognition, especially because I’m celebrating 10 years as a working artist and poet this spring. It’s the perfect capstone to a decade of learning and growing in my craft.”

The Haiku Foundation site explains, “The Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems recognize excellence and innovation in English-language haiku and senryu published in juried public venues during each calendar year.” 

This year the contest saw 1302 poems nominated from 31 countries, mostly selected by haiku editors. All the shortlisted poems are online at thehaikufoundation.org. 

Makino’s haiku have won many other awards and her poems and art regularly appear in the leading journals and anthologies of haiku in English.

She is currently at work on her first full-length book with the working title Water and Stone, to be published in the early summer. The culmination of a decade of painting and writing, the book will feature 50 of her haiga—artworks combined with haiku—painted with Japanese watercolors and sumi ink.

‘The ultimate affirmation’: Artist, poet Annette Makino wins a coveted Touchstone Award from the Haiku Foundation

This collage by Annette Makino is made from painted and torn Japanese washi papers. Featuring a view of the Klamath River, it incorporates her winning one-line haiku.

BY HEATHER SHELTON, TIMES-STANDARD, EUREKA, CA, APRIL 25, 2021

April 17 was International Haiku Poetry Day and, on that day, artist and poet Annette Makino received exciting news.

Makino, of Arcata, was awarded one of the highest honors for English-language haiku, a Touchstone Award from the Haiku Foundation. The annual award recognizes the best individual poems published each previous year.

“I’m thrilled that my haiku has won this award,” Makino said. “You should have heard the whooping from my house! I’ve been studying and writing haiku for 10 years now, and this feels like the ultimate affirmation that I’m getting the hang of it.”

This year, there were 1,302 poems nominated from 31 countries for the Touchstone Award.

“The Touchstone Award is unique as far as I know in that the poems must have won an award or been selected for publication before they can even be considered for nomination,” Makino said. “And most of the nominations come from haiku editors, not the poets themselves. So, it’s really the creme de la creme of all the haiku written in English that year. My husband refers to it as the Nobel Prize for haiku.”

Makino says her haiku was eligible to be nominated because it won the Porad Haiku Award sponsored by Haiku Northwest last fall. To read all of the Touchstone Award for Individual Poems winners for 2020, go to https://thehaikufoundation.org/touchstone-awards-for-individual-poems-2020.

Makino — whose work regularly appears in the leading journals and anthologies of haiku in English — wrote her Touchstone Award-winning one-line haiku while on a recent creative retreat at the Klamath River in Orleans. It reads:

long before language the S of the river

“I was walking along Ishi Pishi Road with my husband during a weeklong vacation/art retreat last summer. I looked down at the Klamath River, which parallels the road, and saw a beautiful S-shaped curve,” Makino said.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has gotten me thinking about big questions like human existence and mortality,” she added. “It occurred to me that the river was flowing long before our species came along, and will continue to flow long after our extinction. When I feel too caught up in our human dramas, there is something comforting in that knowledge.”

Artist and haiku poet Annette Makino is at work in her studio. (Photo by Brandi Easter)

Makino — whose haiku have won many other awards — first got involved with writing haiku in 2010 when her friend, Amy Uyeki, gave her a book that she and her mother had produced featuring poems by Uyeki’s Japanese grandmother.

“This introduced me to haiku and senryu, haiku’s humorous cousin,” Makino said. “From Amy, I also learned about the Japanese tradition of haiga, art combined with haiku. I soon started experimenting with writing my own poems and painting haiga.”

Makino says she loves how a haiku can convey so much in three lines or fewer.

“It’s a deceptively simple art form with great depth that rewards re-reading,” she said. “And in describing a unique personal experience or observation, a good haiku can connect to something universal. There is an intangible exchange between the poet and the reader.

“Most of us are sadly mis-taught that an English-language haiku needs to follow a five-seven-five syllable pattern,” she said. “In fact, that formula is based on a misunderstanding of how Japanese sound-syllables relate to English. Most serious haiku poets don’t follow this syllable count, writing shorter poems that more closely match the feel of Japanese haiku. There are other aspects of a haiku that are much more important and harder to master, such as the juxtaposition of two images or ideas.”

For the past decade, Makino has also run her business, Makino Studios, through which she sells her art (both Japanese watercolors and Japanese-inspired collages) and haiku in the form of cards and calendars in stores and online. She hopes to participate — as in years past — in some fairs and festivals in late 2021 if it is safe to do so.

“This past year, I have focused on creating collages using Japanese washi papers that I paint and other found papers like old letters, book pages, vintage stamps and maps,” she said. “I’m also having fun incorporating natural objects like feathers or sand dollars. And most of my pieces include an original haiku.

This collage by Annette Makino includes her original haiku: “bright green needles/on the fire-scarred redwood—/what we’ve each survived.” It is made with hand-painted rice paper printed with redwood twigs and ferns, sumi ink, acrylic paint, vintage Japanese letters and glue on illustration board.

“When I’m creating, I love how things can come together unexpectedly,” Makino said. “There is a lot of serendipity involved, especially in collage. For instance, I recently created a collage to go with a haiku about a fire-scarred redwood. I was happy to find a piece of rice paper with a big streak of black sumi ink on it to represent the burnt tree, and I came across some other papers that I had printed on a gel press using redwood twigs and ferns. I tore a couple of hand-written letters from 1920s Japan into vertical strips to represent trees in the background. It was a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Makino is now at work on her first full-length book with the working title “Water and Stone,” to be published in the early summer. The book, a culmination of a decade of painting and writing, will feature 50 of her haiga, painted with Japanese watercolors and sumi ink.

“I’ve always been a bookworm and a writer. Even as a kid, I wanted to publish books — about what, I had no idea,” she said.

“My art business, Makino Studios, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. As I mark a decade as a working artist and haiku poet,” Makino said, “it struck me that I could capture the best of my creative work over this time in a full-color book.”

She added, “It’s been a satisfying process to go through all my art and haiku and decide what to include. After I chose 50 pieces, I felt that the rhythm of so many haiku in a row was a bit monotonous. So, I drew from the past 10 years of Makino Studios blog posts and wrote 15 haibun, a Japanese literary form combining autobiographical prose with haiku. These are short vignettes or essays that will weave through the book. It was a challenge to learn a whole new writing technique, but I’m happy with the results, as I think these pieces add a lot of texture and depth to the book.”

For more information about Makino and her work, visit www.makinostudios.com or call 707-362-6644.

A ‘silver lining’: Amid the pandemic, a local artist finds a whole new artistic approach

Annette Makino of Arcata has been making art since she was a child. She’s now creating collage using hand-painted and torn washi papers combined with old letters, book pages, maps and other found papers. Her work also includes original haiku.

BY HEATHER SHELTON, TIMES-STANDARD, EUREKA, CA, NOV. 13, 2020

Local artist Annette Makino has found herself with more time on her hands during the COVID-19 health crisis, and she has used those extra hours to come up with a brand new artistic approach.

“With fairs and art shows canceled this year and some of my retailers seeing reduced sales, the pandemic has slowed down my business,” Makino said. “The silver lining of this difficult time is that I’ve had more time to play in the studio.”

After 10 years of working in watercolor and sumi ink, Makino recently switched gears and started making collages from hand-painted and torn washi papers, sometimes combined with old letters, book pages, maps, junk mail and other found papers. The collages, she said, draw inspiration from the natural landscapes of Northern California and from her Japanese heritage.

“I start with white washi paper, which is traditional Japanese paper that often has bits of leaves, rice straw or other plant fibers embedded in it,” Makino said. “I mix my own paint colors and paint the paper, then tear it as needed for my collages. … Recent collages include bits of a musical score from my choir, old family photos and a letter from my sister. It’s really meaningful to be able to incorporate different aspects of my life into my art.”

Annette Makino says the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced her haiku and art. This work was created in recent months. “(It) reflects a sense of the transience of human existence,” Makino said.

She added: “The fun thing about collage is that you can use any materials you want to make something interesting and meaningful. I paint and decorate all sorts of papers for my art, but I also save things like old keys, bird feathers and foreign stamps for possible use in collages. It fascinates me how a beautiful collage can come together from torn paper and odd bits.”

One thing that hasn’t changed in Makino’s work over the past months is the incorporation of original haiku in her creations.

Makino — who has been making art since she was a child — learned about the Japanese tradition of “haiga,” or art combined with haiku, in 2010.

“I started creating my own haiga, writing haiku and making paintings with Japanese watercolors and sumi ink,” she said. “In 2011, I started my art business, Makino Studios, which sells cards, prints and calendars of my work in stores and online.”

Haiku, she said, is a compact form of poetry, typically three short lines.

This original haiku, featured on Annette Makino’s collage work, was just published in Modern Haiku magazine.

“To write it effectively, you have to distill an observation or experience down to its essence,” Makino said. “I appreciate how the haiku mindset helps me to be more present in the moment, noticing little things like the way the woods look after a rainstorm.”

She shares this haiku — just published in Modern Haiku magazine — about her imagery above:

shortest day
on the tip of each fern
a drop of light

A few weeks ago, Makino attended a virtual haiku conference, the Seabeck Haiku Getaway, which is normally held in Washington State.

“There were about 160 haiku poets from 14 countries, some staying up all night in their time zone to participate,” she said.  “It was a lot of fun to connect with this community, even via Zoom. I gave a presentation on my new collage haiga there, the first time I’d presented this new work in a public forum, and I’m happy to say it was very warmly received.”

Pictured is one of Annette Makino’s new collage works. The featured haiku recently won first place in the Porad Haiku Award program.

Makino’s haiku are regularly published in leading journals of haiku and have also appeared in a number of haiku anthologies, including the Red Moon Anthology, and she just won first place in the Porad Haiku Award sponsored by Haiku Northwest for this work:

long before language the S of the river

“It was written during a walk along the Klamath River in Orleans, and my collage is based on a photo I took there,” she said.

Twelve of Makino’s collages are featured in her 2021 haiga calendar which, along with note cards and signed prints, are available at the “Made in Humboldt” event at Pierson Garden Shop in Eureka through Dec. 24.

“This will be the only fair where you can find my work this season,” said Makino, whose work is also available at several local stores in Eureka, Arcata, McKinleyville, Trinidad and Manila. Her work is available on her website, https://www.makinostudios.com, as well.

In addition to her new collages, Makino is still offering her watercolor cards and prints for sale.

“I’m grateful to have a loyal fan base here in Humboldt and I want to make sure people can still find their favorite designs,” she said.