Romanian haiku wins Japan-EU contest+

TOKYO, April 28 Kyodo - A haiku written by a 41-year-old Romanian man has won the grand prize at the Japan-European Union English Haiku Contest, which was held to coincide with haiku-loving EU President Herman Van Rompuy's visit to Japan, the Japanese
Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

The haiku by Eduard Tara was chosen from 523 entries by poets in Japan and 27
EU countries. The winner will be awarded a stay in the Dogo hot spring resort
in Matsuyama, western Japan, which is said to be the birthplace of modern haiku
in Japan.
Tara's haiku reads as follows:
Unfolding a map
the cherry petals connect
Europe and Japan
The piece won praise from a judge, who said cherry blossoms ''hint at the
adventurous path'' that a haiku poet and a fellow traveler should take.
Officials of the Foreign Ministry, the European Union, the city of Matsuyama
and David McMurray, haiku columnist of the Asahi Shimbun daily's English
edition served as judges.
In Japanese, haiku consist of three lines of five, seven and five syllables.
Earlier in the month, Van Rompuy published his first collection of haiku. The
62-year-old EU president, a former Belgian prime minister, is a fan of
17th-century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho and posts his haiku written in Dutch on
his website.
==Kyodo