Haiku Happenings
This Month’s Article
Check out this month’s article:
Stories in the Moment
New Contests
Check out the latest contests
Publications
Explore publications
Thanks, as always, to the New Zealand Poetry Society for giving us space on its site – free of charge. If you’d consider joining the NZPS, it would be a small repayment for the hosting and support that we receive out of kindness. For those within New Zealand, your membership fees are tax deductible, as is any donation you make over the top of the annual sub. Read more about joining and membership benefits here, including how to join if you live outside New Zealand.
If you’d like to recommend an article, offer to write something for these pages, or generally have something to say about haiku and its related forms, please feel free to get in touch with me, Sandra Simpson. If you find any broken links within an article please let me know. Time passes and websites disappear but clicking on a broken link is always frustrating so I’d like to keep them up to date if I can.
Archives comprise Essays, Articles, NZ Haiku Showcase
and Haiku Commentary.
Contest Results
Porad Award (US)
Vancouver Cherry Blossom Haiku Invitational (Canada)
San Francisco Haibun Contest (US)
Pula Film Festival Haiku Contest (Croatia)
Morioka Haiku Contest (Japan)
Basho Memorial English Haiku Contest (Japan)
News & Events
Congratulations
To Peter Free who has received an HM in the Tokutomi Memorial Haiku Contest (US). See the winners’ names here.
To Anne Curran, Peter Free and Owen Bullock who have all had work selected to appear in the online anthology from the Yamadera Basho Haiku Contest (Japan). Read the anthology here. Division 1b is the English-language section.
To Jenny Fraser who has been placed Second in the traditional section of the Jane Reichhold Memorial Haiga Contest (US). See all the winning entries and read the judges’ comments here.
To Raphe Dacre, 12, of Christchurch, who has won the Youth Section of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Haiku Invitational. Read the winning poems and judges’ commentaries here. And go here to see the many other Kiwi names with awards in the Youth section.
Vale Cor van den Heuvel
Renowned American haiku poet and editor Cor van den Heuvel died on September 12, aged 93. He began writing haiku in 1959, after discovering the genre the year before in San Francisco during that city’s celebrated poetry renaissance, and published his first chapbook of haiku in 1961.
He was perhaps best known internationally as editor of three editions of The Haiku Anthology and for his one-word poem, tundra. Read more about his life here.
Flying Fish
Flying Fish editor Ranice Tara is seeking previously published poems for the inaugural issue (pdf).
Submit: 3-5 previously published haiku, senryū, monoku, and tanka, including publication credits and your name and country.
Closes: December 1. Please submit by email.
songbirds online waka anthology
From next year the United Haiku and Tanka Society will become songbirds online. The editors are seeking submissions of previously unpublished waka/tanka for the songbirds online anthology.
Submit: Extended to December 15.
Read more here.
NZPS Anthology sold out
Paint Me, the 2024 NZPS Anthology, has gone into a second – and final – print run, already sold out!
End Notes
October 31, 2024: Here it comes — the end of the year is racing towards us. It seems we no sooner look up from Labour Weekend (Labour Day is the fourth Monday in October in New Zealand) than the year seems to be over. Do you find it as dispriting as I do, that Christmas decorations are now in shops in October? “Wait,” I want to shout at retailers who, at the same time, are also busy cashing in on the imported Halloween nonsense with sickly food and tacky decorations. Bah, humbug! Fortunately, there are maples in their bright, spring leaf to enjoy, roses beginning to unfurl and birds singing and singing. Balance. – Sandra
HAIKU EVENTS 2025
Feb 1-28 NaHaiWriMo, online. Read more here.
Feb 21-23 The Way of Haiku, online (USA time). Read more here. Also run in-person on the same dates.
April 17 International Haiku Poetry Day
Sept 24-28 Haiku North America, San Francisco, USA. Read more here.