International Haiku Competition 2020

This year saw Gimnazija Vič once again taking charge of the international competition for haiku poetry which has been an important part of the creative writing programme of our school for eight years now.

At the start of the school year, there were great plans made for students and mentors from different countries across Europe to join us in Ljubljana for an event at which the best pieces of the year would be performed as well as giving foreign guests the opportunity to find out more about Slovenia and different aspects of its national culture.

Over the months, our mentors were in regular contact with mentors from schools in a number of different countries. While some of our regular partners were unable to take part this year, we had the pleasure of welcoming new nations to our creative network. When the final group was established, schools from Croatia, Estonia, Italy, Slovenia, and Turkey were involved.

The global health crisis meant that we had to cancel the event and presentation which would have marked the conclusion of the project. Our students had already been practising the poetry readings which would have been the highlight of the presentation and there was also sadness among those who were planning to take part in other literary and musical elements of the show which had the focus on presenting key elements of Slovenian national culture.

However, our school mentors were determined that the project would be marked properly so, once it was possible to return to work, they made sure that a booklet was published which collected all the best pieces from the different writers which was posted to the schools involved to allow the young poets to see their work in print alongside the others selected as being the most creative and imaginative of this year’s competition.

The changes in how we live our professional lives made a huge difference to the 2020 project but we are happy that it was able to conclude in a proper way. With what we have learned and the strong network of cooperation that we have established, we look forward to making sure that the tradition goes on and plans are already underway to ensure that the 2021 competition goes ahead.

Congratulations to all the writers who had their work selected for the final publication and thank you to the teachers and mentors who worked hard through the year to make sure that the project was such a success.