2025
HAIKU (JUDGE: BENEDICT GRANT)
Biography
Benedict Grant is a Professor of English, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and the author of two collections of haiku and senryu published by Red Moon Press: winterizing (2024), which received an Honourable Mention for the Touchstone Distinguished Books Award, and spirit level (2022), which was shortlisted for the same Award. His poems have appeared in many annual anthologies and have placed in several competitions. In 2025, he was selected for inclusion in A New Resonance 14: Emerging Voices in English Language Haiku.
First Place
winter solstice
a glimmer
from the chew toy
Scott Mason
Somers, NY
In a letter to his brother, Russian author Anton Chekhov offered some valuable advice for writers: ‘In descriptions of Nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture. For instance, you’ll have a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle glittered like a bright little star, and that the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled past like a ball’. Chekhov is highlighting the importance of showing over telling, using concrete details to illuminate the bigger picture and make a scene come alive in the reader’s mind. Such details are crucial, especially in haiku, which have a limited amount of space—one breath—to capture the attention and provoke a sensory, emotional and intellectual reaction. Consciously or no, this haiku exemplifies Chekhov’s advice. We have the suggestive glint, even (by implication) the shadow of a dog. Not a shard of glass in this case, but a chew toy. I picture it lying forlorn on a frozen lawn. On the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, its faint glimmer gains significance because of the nature of the object and what it represents. It’s a reminder that on the other side of the cold winter season is spring, with everything that spring signifies: renewal; longer, warmer days; and, most important of all for the owner of that chew toy, the promise of play. We don’t meet this owner in person, but in the poet’s wry, hopeful words I sense a reflection of its own eagerness to stretch its legs, bound outside, and get that chew toy between its teeth again.
Second Place
county fair
the prize hog
eyes the crowd
Scott Mason
Somers, NY
What lends this haiku its humour (and blurs the boundary between it being classified as a haiku or a senryu) is its anthropomorphism: the hog takes on human characteristics as it eyes the crowd. For the hog, First Prize at the county fair is a decidedly hollow victory; consequently, there is wariness and suspicion in its stare, as though it knows its fate is sealed and is waiting for the humans to make the next move. But there is also, to my mind, a suggestion of contempt. ‘Who,’ I imagine it thinking, ‘are you to judge me? Were the shoe on the other trotter, I’d be hard pressed to find a prizewinner among such poor specimens!’ For a moment, the roles are reversed: the hog is judging its judges, and finds them wanting. The sentiment is similar to that found in Scottish poet Robert Burns’ “To a Louse”: if we could gain some perspective and ‘see ourselves as others see us’, we’d be able to free ourselves from any foolish ideas we might have about our inherent superiority. Of course, this kind of role reversal can get out of hand, as seen in George Orwell’s Animal Farm… but I’ll leave it there.
Third Place
5-day forecast
a jackpot of suns
on my screen
Jennifer Burd
Ann Arbor, MI
Where I live, in Atlantic Canada, a row of suns on the screen is something to celebrate. This is particularly the case if the weather has been persistently cold and overcast, because it offers a reprieve from those long, grey days that can sometimes seem so oppressive. Cleverly, the poet whisks us from the private screen of a phone or a computer to the noise and bright lights of a casino, drawing on the image of a slot machine, or so-called ‘one-armed bandit’, to reinforce the surprise and delight of winning a jackpot. We imagine the shiny silver and golden coins spilling out like a sparkling waterfall into the tray, and the squeals of delight from a gambler who’s finally struck it rich after days or weeks of hoping for a change of fortune. The forecast is suddenly sunny. It’s time to shed those layers and treasure those precious days of sunshine, because who knows how long your luck will last? Spend them wisely.
SENRYU (JUDGE: DANIEL SHANK CRUZ)
Biography
Daniel Shank Cruz (they/multitudes) grew up in the Bronx and now lives in Jersey City, New Jersey. Multitudes is the author of a book of literary criticism, Queering Mennonite Literature (Penn State University Press, 2019), a hybrid memoir/literary critical text, Ethics for Apocalyptic Times (Penn State University Press, 2024), and a good possible year for an apocalypse: poems (Red Moon Press, 2025). With James Knippen, they are the co-author of It Breaks Your Heart: Haiku and Senryu on the 2023 New York Mets (Redheaded Press, 2024). Their writing has also appeared in journals such as Acorn, Blithe Spirit, Failed Haiku, #FemkuMag, Frogpond, Kingfisher, and Modern Haiku. Visit them at danielshankcruz.com.
First place
second date
so many ways to tie
this scarf
Bill Cooper
Naples, FL
This poem epitomizes the senryu genre in its combination of a vivid image (a film plays in my head of the speaker trying one arrangement of the scarf in the mirror, getting an exasperated look on their face, trying another arrangement, getting exasperated again, and so on), a dash of humor, and a relatable emotion of nervous excitement as the speaker hopes the second date will go as well as the first. The choice to depict this emotion through an accessory rather than a main item of the speaker’s outfit is exquisite.
Second place
gaying the pray away every day moon
Rowan Beckett
Lakewood, OH
The most noticeable element of this celebratory, joyful poem is the pleasing repetition of the “ay” sound throughout, which carries the reader along to the poem’s profound last image. The poem moves from a statement rejecting religious homophobia to a reminder of the celestial presence of the moon, which is often viewed as a subversive symbol of power in queer occult writing. The poem thus effectively employs a traditional poetic subject in a socially activist way.
Third place
a year gone—
the bookmark still
in Exodus
Edward Huddleston
Baxley, GA
A heartwrenching, well-crafted poem about loss. Time has moved along, but the bookmark remains “still” both in the sense of “not moving” and in the sense of “remaining as time passes.” The choice of Biblical book is also skillful because Exodus is a story about leaving, echoing the person who is now “gone.”
Honorable Mentions (not ranked in a specific order)
COVID
grandma sanitizes her room
with anointing oil
Ibrahim Nureni
Baton Rouge, LA
her ashes how do i know
John Stevenson
Nassau, NY
her funeral
the vows
we didn’t exchange
Ravi Kiran
Hyderabad, India
tinnitus it’s what’s between your
M F Drummy
Longmont CO
still life
her watercolors
before the tremors
Miera Rao
Fremont, CA
TANKA (JUDGE: MARGARET CHULA)
Biography
Margaret Chula has been an ambassador of tanka through her readings, workshops, and dramatic presentations. “Three Women Who Loved Love: The Life and Poems of Izumi Shikibu, Yosano Akiko, and Suzuki Masajo”, a one-woman dramatic performance with costumes and musical accompaniment, has been performed in Poland, Japan, Canada, and the U.S. Maggie served as president of the Tanka Society of America from 2011-2015. Her tanka collections include Always Filling, Always Full (2001), Just This (2013) , and Perigee Moon (2021). She lives in Portland, Oregon, and enjoys hiking in the Columbia River Gorge.
First Place
after work
wandering old streets
in spring darkness—
how beautiful you are
with his child inside you
Farah Ali
Brighton, UK
This tanka skillfully unreels like a film noire. In the first three lines, it sets up a scene with time, place, and mood. The mood is one of melancholy—a man or woman wandering old streets in spring darkness. Revisiting old haunts, reliving memories. “Wandering,” not walking or strolling, reflects the poet’s mindset. Then, the final two lines turn abruptly into a statement about the woman carrying “his” child—not “our” child. Mystery is the cornerstone of this tanka. Upon each reading, I had a different interpretation. Is this a man wandering alone thinking about his old love who is now pregnant with another man’s child? Or a woman walking down streets she once shared with a former lover who will soon have a child with this other woman? Spring, the time of renewal, is filled with regret. I am drawn to tanka that pose a mystery and, at the same time, evoke a strong emotional response.
Second Place
waking up.
to breakfast in bed
the morning after
new to troupledom
and triangular toast
Sara Winteridge
Fordingbridge, Hampshire, England
What an intriguing and unusual tanka. In the first three lines, we observe a loving morning-after scene with the speaker being served breakfast in bed. Two lovers, we imagine, after a romantic night together. The third line serves as a fulcrum, catapulting us from the first two lines to the final two. What an unexpected shift! I had to look up troupledom: a consensual romantic relationship involving three people who are equal partners. The speaker is a newcomer to troupledom, not knowing what to expect. Certainly not breakfast in bed—and being served triangular toast. How refreshing to read a humorous tanka.
Third Place
late at night
no moon in the sky
the clock ticks on
my thoughts are horses
with no room to run
Karen Sites
Boulder, CO
We have all experienced insomnia, lying in bed late at night, nothing but darkness outside, and to make it worse, a ticking clock reminding us that we are still awake. The tanka shifts from the poet’s exterior descriptions to his/her interior thoughts by offering a vivid metaphor—horses, restrained horses, with no way to escape from their confinement. After reading this tanka of helplessness, I wanted to open the gate for the horses to escape, allowing the poet to finally fall asleep.
Honorable Mentions (in no particular order)
an instinct
to rock you in my arms
never left
this old oak still sways
even on windless days
An’ya Bartolovic’
Oregon
A tender moment of recollection for someone lost—a child or maybe a spouse. Both sections of the tanka are linked by motion and emotion. Rocking and swaying are comforting actions and are remembered in the body regardless of how much time has passed.
eve of a deadline
for the climate change report. . .
from this blank page
I gaze out at a garden snail
who sets its own pace
Chen-ou Liu
Ajax, Ontario, Canada
Once again, a tanka that shifts seamlessly from the human world to nature. The specificities of “climate change report,” “blank page” and “its own pace” heighten the effect. We, too, have the stress of deadlines to control and change the damage we have done to the environment. Nature, represented by the snail, moves at its own pace. This observation of the humble snail will perhaps inspire the writer to move forward.
keeping me
under surveillance
the magpies
in the pines
outside oncology
Sara Winteridge
Fordingbridge, Hampshire, England
This tanka unfolds like an origami. The first two lines begin with an ominous feeling of being observed or spied on by a person or persons. Lines 3 and 4 shift our focus outdoors—ah, it’s the magpies who are watching. And then that jolt in the final line, with the realization that the poet is in an oncology room. Beautifully done.
HAIBUN (JUDGES: JIM KACIAN & SHLOKA SHANKAR)
General Remarks
Of the 112 entries to the 2025 HPNC Haibun Contest, we have selected three winners and three honorable mentions. Many of the pieces we didn’t select failed, in our opinions, for what are very usual reasons in haibun: the haiku is not on a comparable level with the prose, or vice versa; the haiku follows too closely upon the prose, or not closely enough; the balance between prose and haiku is weighted too heavily toward the prose, or toward the haiku; the tone of the constituent parts was too susurrant, or too dissident; and so on. What cannot be denied, however, is how honestly giving each writer was to their particular story — these were truly moving testimonials to varied lives, ranging from parsing the merits of living rough to those of living behind security gates; of facing our memories of youth as well as our realities of age; of coping with the fraughtness of each human decision while recognizing that not deciding has an equally large impact. We thank you for the forthrightness of your work, and encourage you to know, regardless of whether or not we have discovered sufficient literary quality therein, that we have found human quality in abundance. There are many reasons why we might write what we do, and winning awards cannot be very high up the list. We expect that you have identified why you put words to paper, and respect that those truer purposes are a correct valuation.
First Place
Minor Chord
by C.X. Turner
spring river
stones it cannot hold
tumble away
No one told her why school felt like drowning without a surface, or why existence itself was excruciating. She learned to wear a smile, pushing it out, paper-boat thin, when absolutely necessary.
Years later, her children, wild with love, flung their arms around every part of her — the tangled words, the missed signals, the deep obsessions with tiny things. For a while, it felt like sunlight with no outline. For a while, she mistook the quiet for peace.
Then their voices sharpened. Some nights, a familiar ache stirred in the defiance — an echo of how she’d once learned to question her own ways. The weight of bewilderment settled in as they tested the edges of what was still beyond their understanding. Yet when she listened closely, the music was different.
early thaw
a flicker of minnows
in the flooded fields
Commentary
This rather technical piece of writing is skillfully managed. The parallel tracks of river/mother are handled without excessive cross-referencing, yet we are aware at all times that this is happening with the help of the bookended haiku that guide us by reiterating the river motif. The prose travels nicely between all three nearly-equal paragraphs, moving us forward in authoritative clusters, in logical steps, only to end up somewhere we could not have predicted. The tonal compression suggests gravitas, but it never moves too far toward telling. The abstractions (“weight of bewilderment,” “edge of understanding”) are neatly balanced by specifics (“tangled words,” “voiced music”). All of which leads us to that compelling concluding line.
Second Place
Between Stations
by C.X. Turner
The sick note came like a ticket I hadn’t booked, dated or read. At first, the days pooled in my lap, heavy with silence. I learned to read the room like one of those black-and-white films I lingered over on long afternoons — pauses, glances, the quiet turning of a key.
There was no grand departure, just the slow undoing of everything I thought I had to be. Some mornings I dressed, to see if I still fit into the world. Other days I didn’t bother, sinking into the abyss of blankets and warm tea.
I looked back more than forward. But somewhere along the line — perhaps while writing, perhaps listening to blackbirds — I began to carry less. Less fear. Less noise. Less care. I missed who I had been, and I didn’t miss her at all.
in the cutlery drawer
a spoon
I don’t remember
Commentary
Content was the main driver of interest for us in this piece. It asks an increasingly relevant question — does our culture require us to be “sick” to be allowed quiet? The prose, while not portentous, carries its wisdom well — it’s personal, vulnerable, introspective without being melodramatic, a useful approach in mirroring the gradual sloughing off of an old persona. If it is a bit telling, it exposes a great deal of heart, and allots more room for the haiku to do the showing. This balance has been achieved well.
Third Place
Guardian
by J. Zimmerman
What map of the grey and white eternity entices an archangel to find any of us across sultriness across smoke across fire and whose voice persuades her to accept a basket of salt water for a jar of the sun?
passing through
the cry of a falcon
clear air after rain
Commentary
This electric haibun derives much of its effect from its narrative drive, a single prose sentence that asks several questions within its nominal query. Some of this momentum is gained from the lack of punctuation, which hastens the reader along its path. And there is a reason for this pace — without it, we would need to ask exactly what is going on. We are forced to ponder these apocalyptic questions — the dissolution of binaries, the meaning of our circumstance of floating in a sea of grey, perhaps lost, or worse, doomed. Clearly, we are not intended to ask for literalness in this context, but to accept that chthonic happenings are afoot, and that whatever reckoning we mortals might make of it must come from the haiku. And does it? A metaphor of cleansing is prominent, with “basket of tears” and “rain” providing clarity, but even this remains problematic, or multi-faceted, depending on our point of view. Given this quizzical set of impossibilities, how can this be one of our prize-winners? Well, just read it. It sustains a magic of language that is undeniable, and the lack of a specific logic works well with the notion that these are the doings of beings not of our plane. If it strains our cognitive faculties, it more than compensates in tone, pace, and rhythm. It will not be everyone’s taste, but it reaches for, and, in our opinion at least, attains a sublimity that surpasses logic.
Honorable Mention
Visitation
by Kristen Lindquist
Acadia National Park, May, before the real crowds arrive. Blackbirds teed up on last year’s cattails. Skunk cabbage leaves unfurling, ferns, purple blooms of rhodora humming with bees. On a trail to the sea, pitch pines forest ruddy bedrock scraped bare by the last glacier. Resinous scent of bark, of needles underfoot.
sunlight singing in the boughs a pine warbler
Moving closer, the cacophony of a flock of crossbills shifting among the trees, prying apart last year’s cones. Here and there a fallen cone waits for summer’s heat to crack it open as effectively as any beak, unloose its tiny seeds.
sun-warmed granite slowly opening a spring azure
Commentary
This piece harkens to an earlier era of haibun that featured keenly observed, well-stated, seasonally and biologically correct prose as its goal. Such work presupposes that being in the presence of other creatures in their natural setting is precisely the subject matter it seeks. Is it only a matter of time before we find our way back to this sensibility? The two monoku are well-crafted, offering the possibility of multiple stops, and, therefore, readings. We don’t see too much of this sort of thing any longer, and it is good to be reminded of just how effective it can be.
Honorable Mention
Caddis fly larvae
by Alan Peat
first lightthrough easing rainfallcircling dovesI am wearing my Wellington boots and blue snorkel Parka, walking down the lane, past the ‘Farmer’s Arms’ to the path by the bridge that leads to Straw beck.
The stone-shadow snow on the high fells has gone; the drystone-walled fields are dotted with mule lambs. And dad’s hand, in my hand, is warm.
On the beck’s bank we are statues. Mostly there are wagtails, warblers, blackcaps and crows. But, if we are still enough for long enough, we might catch a glimpse of electric-blue. The first to spot a kingfisher wins.
the boy I was —
rain at the end of a leaf
in full sun
We make for the stream to turn water-smoothed rocks; to see and touch what lies beneath. I have learned how white-clawed crayfish make clouds of mud; how Bullheads will dart at the slightest touch.
It’s dad who finds what we’re looking for first. No longer than a thumbnail, it is glistening on his palm. He points to its case of gravel, seeds, sticks and snail shell. He tells me how it glued each tiny piece with silk.
sunset
silver clouds swarm
above the stream
Commentary
This attractive piece of idyllic reminiscence after a lost English boyhood offers an atmospheric vocabulary and a wistful tenor, with an excellent payoff. The haiku could use some work, though they all could act as standalone poems. The title gains prominence here only towards the end — by not naming the object, we glue the pieces together, and so are invited to share a part of that moment.
Honorable Mention
Summer’s end
by Alan Peat
I have come to watch the hornets become drunk. It must be late afternoon; the sky will be an unsprigged plate of Wedgwood blue; the sun will still be warm in the browning, fallen fruit.
The insects have no interest in me, sitting on an old bentwood chair by the cleft-trunked pear tree. A shallow bowl is wedged between each fork. Butterflies collect there. They prefer its height to the hornets’ floor. I fill the bowl with rotting peaches for them. Sometimes, after feeding, they fly in meandering spirals. Mostly they just teeter on its lip.
But the hornets have no safety valve; they gorge themselves until they can no longer fly, then crawl haphazardly through the grass in their stupors.
darkness falling
a drained glass of wine
on dry grass
Commentary
This is a very well-gauged and successful piece. The simple opening line is wonderfully engaging, kicking off prose that is usefully descriptive and occasionally fine. To wit: “the sky will be an unsprigged plate of Wedgwood blue”. The clincher of a haiku works rather well in its modest, self-effacing way. A less generic title could have improved this piece’s standing, but we both enjoyed its gentle humor.
Judges’ Biographies
Jim Kacian is the founder and board chairperson of The Haiku Foundation (www.thehaikufoundation.org), founder and owner of Red Moon Press (www.redmoonpress.com), author of a score of books, primarily haiku, and editor of dozens more, including editor-in-chief of Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (W.W. Norton, 2013). He lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with his partner of more than 35 years, Maureen Gorman, and kayaks when he can, which is no longer often enough.
Shloka Shankar is a poet, editor, and visual artist from Bangalore, India. A Best of the Net nominee and widely published haiku poet, Shloka is the Founding Editor of Sonic Boom and its imprint Yavanika Press. She is the author of the microchap Points of Arrival (Origami Poems, 2021), the full-length haiku collection The Field of Why (Yavanika Press, 2022), and co-author of the haiga anthology, living in the pause (Yavanika Press, 2024). Instagram: @shloks23 | Website: www.shlokashankar.com