Dear (future) contributors: Unfortunately, due to personal and health reasons, our journal kontinuum: kortárs haiku_contemporary haiku is currently on hiatus and will not be published indefinitely. We’ll of course appropriately announce if/when this changes and the journal returns. A million apologies for any and all previously unanswered emails or other inquiries – we appreciate how frustrating this situation must have been for you.
We hope to return in the not-too-far future, and if we do, we’d love to hear from you again!
Thank you for your understanding, and best wishes,
Rebeka & Adam
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
Contemporary haiku (and senryu), inspired by the author’s own cultural, linguistic, and historical reality, whether observed or imagined.
Haiku by authors who have internalized traditions, and consider them sources of inspiration, not limitations. Haiku by authors writing for today and tomorrow.
Haiku inspired and inseminated by other genres. Experimental haiku, both in terms of form and content. Haiku that create their own space, time, and language.
Haiku sequences; surreal, fantastic, sci-fi and speculative haiku.
Gendai haiku, modern haiku, postmodern haiku. Found haiku.
One-line haiku (monoku), two-line haiku, conceptual haiku; haiku embedded into and reflecting on the 21st century.
We’re also looking forward to publishing articles and essays on Hungarian, Japanese or any other international haiku, on the practice and teaching of haiku, and any other haiku-related topic as well as reviews of books, exhibitions etc. relevant to the world of haiku (broadly construed).
What makes a haiku in the 21st century? What is a Hungarian haiku? And what is international haiku? These are the most important questions posed by our journal, and we seek the ever-changing responses to these questions. Beyond that, we aim to introduce established and emerging haiku poets from all over the world to a Hungarian audience, to facilitate a cross-fertilization of various approaches and traditions.
We’d like to see experimental, transgressive writing, and thus we won’t set harsh and immutable “rules” as to what a haiku is. However, below you can find a few guidelines to give you an idea about what we’re likely to publish:
˃ we primarily consider haiku a genre, not a form; therefore:
˃ we discourage submitting haiku with a 5-7-5 syllable count (except in rare, artistically well-grounded cases), and we’d like to note that the short-long-short line pattern is also only one among the many options (that is, we’re not overly fond of ‘neo-classical’ and ‘pseudo-classical’ haiku);
˃ we like haiku that make use of the aesthetic concept of ma (roughly ‘white space’, or ‘negative space’), where beyond the concrete imagery there is a marked presence of all that is left unsaid; haiku that involves the reader in the construction of their meaning;
˃ we love being surprised, astonished, even shocked; that is, we love reading haiku employing powerful imagery and language;
˃ the use of season words (kigo) is not obligatory, but we’d be interested in reading haiku that include specifically Hungarian (or other local) as well as ‘contemporary’ kigo (broadly construed);
˃ we don’t encourage the explicit use of cutting words (kireji), although in certain cases it may be warranted; we prefer, however, if the syntax creates the cut;
˃ obviously, there’s no thematic restriction;
˃ one more thing usually mentioned in places like this is that we’re particularly put off by language that is unjustifiably offensive, racist, or in any way hateful, as well as by content that is unnecessarily obscene or pornographic. That being said, we think that haiku may of course contain profanity or nudity, it just needs to be artistically justified.
We only accept original, previously unpublished works that are not under consideration elsewhere (that is to say, regrettably, no simultaneous submissions). We consider those works “previously published” that have been selected for publication by an editor. Haiku posted in closed groups on social media (Facebook, Twitter etc.) as well as is other closed online forums are not considered previously published.
THE SPECIFICS
Please submit no more than 7 haiku/senryu and/or 1 essay/article/review per submission; please submit only once per submission period.
You’re more than welcome to send us your brief bio (ideally around 50 words) along with submission.
Send submissions in the body of an email (or, in case of any special formatting, as an attachment) to post@haikukontinuum.com. Essays, articles, reviews, and any other prose pieces should be sent as an attachment, in MS Word format. In the subject of the email, please enter “HAIKU,” “ESSAY,” “ARTICLE,” “REVIEW,” or “OTHER,” depending on the type of the submission. If you’re submitting for our special Vonnegut section, please enter “VONNEGUT” into the subject line. Currently, we publish pieces written in Hungarian and/or English. Please also include your name/pen name, email address as well as your current residence (town/city and country) in the body of the email. If you’re submitting work written in English, please observe these guidelines (the required email subjects are different for Hungarian-language pieces).
Regrettably, we are currently unable to pay our contributors, although we certainly hope that this will change in the future.
SUBMISSION PERIODS
April 1–May 31 (July issue)
October 1–November 30 (January issue)
Submissions won’t be read outside these periods.
kontinuum 