Haiku Happenings
This Month’s Article
Check out this month’s article:
Kigo – Some Perspectives and Difficulties
by Geethanjali Rajan
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
British Haiku Society Awards (UK)
HPNC Haiku, Senryu, Tanka & Haibun (US)
Kusamakura Haiku Contest (Japan)
Irmo Cherry Blossom Haiku Contest (US)
Matsuyama Inspires Photo Haiku Contest (Japan)
Triveni Haiku Awards (India)
Golden Triangle Haiku Contest (US)
Basho Memorial Haiku Contest (Japan)
Basho-an Haiku Contest (Japan)
TSA Tanka Prose Contest (US)
Morioka Haiku Contest (Japan)
WHJ Summer Contest (Wales)
News & Events
International Haiku Poetry Day
Since 2012, The Haiku Foundation has promoted April 17 has been celebrated as International Haiku Poetry Day. You may have noticed that several competitions will announce their winners on that day, and THF hosts the EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaboration, which it calls “the world’s largest annual collaborative poem”.
Free online haiku workshop
As part of the Virtual Japan Fair Haiku Contest, Michael Dylan Welch is running a free online workshop for all ages and stages.
May 14, 6-8pm (US Pacific time) = May 15, 1-3pm NZ time (but please check my conversion!). Full details from the website.
New Books
Turtle Dreams is the latest Red Moon Press anthology of 2025 English-language haiku and related forms, the 30th in the annual series! This one features 165 poems, 23 linked forms and six essays. Read more here.
Griots: Keepers of the Story is a collection of haibun by five African-American writers. Read more here.
Japan-theme events in NZ
April 18-July 11: Currents Calling Home: Ai Iwane & Mānawatia te Wai, Hastings Art Gallery. Read more here.
May 15: Japanese novelist Mieko Kawakami in conversation, 7-8pm, Aotea Centre, Auckland, $25/$30. Read more here.
Journal News
Welcome to Cornflower Haiku Magazine, a new, quarterly journal that will be published online. The editorial team comprises Michael Pappafava, Denisa Hanšutová, Annie Wilson, Sharon Ferrante, David Cox and Paul David Mena.
Submit for the inaugural issue: April 1-30. Full details from the website. (The website’s name is Dutch, Haikudingen, which translates to ‘haiku things’.)
Starting with its next issue, online journal Echidna Tracks will become an international publication, “and we welcome previously unpublished haiku/senryu submissions from haiku poets worldwide”.
Submit: April 1-30. Full details from the website.
Wales Haiku Journal has started a free Haiku Emporium on its website, a collection of words that is regularly added to and changed that is intended to act as inspiration for poets.
Congratulations
To Barbara Strang, Sandra Simpson and Sue Courtney who each have a haiku on a signboard in the Golden Triangle area of Washington DC.
To Anne Curran and Pip Sheehan who were each among the 10 winners chosen by judges Dhugal Lindsay and Naoko Fujita respectively, in the Basho-an Haiku Contest (Japan).
To Sue Courtney, Peter Free and Sandra Simpson who all have work in turtle dreams, the Red Moon anthology of 2025 English-language haiku.
To Stephen Norton who has received a Third Prize in the Kusamakura Haiku Contest (Japan).
End Notes
March 31, 2026: Okay, no more about the wild weather, let’s reflect upon and look forward to calmer skies wherever you may be (and certainly no comments on what’s making headlines). As I write, a cold wind is whipping through my garden while the mid-morning sun lights up the leaves of the maples as they toss about. The most pictureseque at the moment is a ‘problem child’, not really enjoying life in a pot, I suspect, and a maple that resents any sort of wind. We’ve partly solved this by moving the pot behind another, slightly larger, and more robust maple, thus giving it shelter. I suppose that’s all any of us want, a bit of shelter and a friend who’s there to take the brunt of what we find hard to cope with. Not to go all soppy on you, but isn’t that what we find in haiku and in the haiku community? I certainly hope that’s been your experience. One of the things I enjoy about haiku is the continual learning that is open to us. This month’s article is all about kigo for English-speaking poets, well worth a read. The Contest listing has been updated to the end of June, and includes details of this year’s NZ Poetry Society Haiku Contests, adult and junior. – Sandra