Haiku Happenings
This Month’s Article
Check out this month’s article:
Polishing Our Intent: A Collaborative Essay on Revising Haiku
by The Noodle Bowl Group
New Contests
Check out the latest contests
Publications
Explore publications
News & Events
Year of the Horse haiku & tanka
Unbridled will be the ninth collection in Corine Timmer’s Chinese zodiac series. Poets may submit up to 5 horse-themed haiku or tanka, one of which can be previously published (please provide credits).
Closes: June 30. Full details from the website.
Passion for Ginko
Ginko Walks on Youtube is a “passion project” of P H Fischer, with the first episodes featuring a walk with one poem from A New Resonance 14 (2025, Red Moon Press) “hopefully inspiring reflections and new poems along the way”. See more here.
Japan-theme events in NZ
To June 19: Modern Japanese Sashiko Embroidery, 7pm, Waiheke Island, $120. Read more here.
June 20: With Love, Japan, 10.30am-4pm, St Peter’s Church, Christchurch, free. Read more here.
To July 11: Currents Calling Home: Ai Iwane & Mānawatia te Wai, Hastings Art Gallery. Read more here.
To July 26: Ceramics exhibition by Shigemitsu Ohashi, Tuesday-Sunday 10am-4pm, Toi Mahara, Waikanae. Read more here.
Vale Bruce Ross, 1945-2026
My apologies for I have only just discovered that poet and editor Bruce Ross died on January 12. Read an obituary for Bruce here. Tributes that outline more fully his contributions to haiku may be read on the Autumn Moon website, the haiku journal he founded and edited. Bruce was kind enough to give permission to allow Haiku NewZ to republish some of his essays: The Essence of Haiku, Sincerity and the Future of Haiku, and Narratives of the Heart: Haibun.
winter solstice
the houselight left on
for our return
Bruce Ross
A Vast Sky, an Anthology of Contemporary World Haiku
(eds Bruce Ross, Koko Kato, Dietmar Tauchner, Patricia Prime, 2015)
Contest Results
Robert Spiess Haiku Contest (US)
Haiku Association of Sri Lanka Contest
HIGH/COO Chapbook Contest (US)
British Haiku Society Awards (UK)
Solitary Daisy Haiku Contest (Canada)
Touchstone Poem Awards
Touchstone Haibun Awards
Touchstone Book Awards
Magic of Maples Haiku Contest (UK)
Golden Triangle Haiku Contest (US)
Basho Memorial Haiku Contest (Japan)
Betty Drevniok Haiku Award (Canada)
Sharpening the Green Pencil (Romania)
Basho-an Haiku Contest (Japan)
Kaji Aso Haiku Contest (US)
Maya Lyubenova Haiku Contest (Bulgaria)
Morioka Haiku Contest (Japan)
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.
End Notes
June 1, 2026: I hope you got your entries in to the NZPS Haiku Contest in good time (or in time at least). By agreeing to judge the junior contest, I made myself ineligible for the senior contest so have had a few haiku in hand to send to other contests and publications. It’s been fun having an explore of the Publications listings. This month’s article is a nice look at how the revision of our poems is so important and the various inspirations to achieve this. The Monthly Article archive (on a different website) includes photos of the authors of the article, something I wasn’t able to manage with the software on this site. The Contest listings have been updated to the end of August so plenty of opportunities there too. How the year is slipping away! – Sandra
Events
2026
August 14-16: Cradle of American Haiku Festival, Mineral Point, Wisconsin, USA. Read more here.
October 22-25: Seabeck Getaway, Haiku Northwest, Washington State, USA. Guest speaker: Susan Antolin. Read more here.
2027
Haiku North America: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.