Haiku Poetry Awards Maverick Winner - Judy Clarence
Judy Clarence, a retired university librarian, lives and works in Penn Valley, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California after many decades in Berkeley. She shares her household with her daughter and grandkids, a goofy old dog, and two cats. She’s also an accomplished classical violinist. She and ruth began their lifelong friendship in San Francisco in the late 1950s, hanging out in North Beach and sharing their poems. Judy has poems appearing or forthcoming in Allegro Poetry Magazine, Shot Glass Journal, Amarillo Bay, Persimmon Tree, Blue Unicorn and more. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Six Haiku for ruth by Judy Clarence
You and I picked quince
from that field’s last tree, before
we knew we’d grow old.
Zim-Zoom running in
the tall grass in Bernal Heights
that summer. Good dog!
My little daughter
admired your blue hair. She’s been
dyeing ever since.
Distracted by jazz,
I hear your granular voice
inundate each poem.
You called. I ignored
the message wanting money.
I wish I’d answered.
Now the beach winds blow.
No one home there anymore.
The tides keep breathing.
Haiku Poetry Awards Emerging Winner - Grace Yu
It all begins with an idea.
Grace Yu is a writer and poet based in New York City whose poems explore the beauty of the natural world, overlapping identities and cultural experiences. She is passionate about health and educational disparities, and has been recognized by the Francine Ringold Awards for New Writers and shortlisted for the 2024 Alpine Fellowship, among others. Her poem “my student, age 7, describes gentrification” is inspired by the children she volunteers with, and written in protest against the humanitarian crises that are killing so many children around the world. She stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine against the state of Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
my student, age 7, describes gentrification by Grace Yu
“we had to move cuz
they made it so poor people
can’t live here no more.”
Haiku Poetry Awards Youth Winner - Chelsea Zhu
Chelsea Zhu is a writer from Maryland, who loves swimming, skiing, and figure skating. She writes haikus to explore their evocative nature of language, imagery, and emotion. "April Haiku" is a study of poetry rooted in time and space, the way human memory translates into movement and music of nature - remembrance of lost connection, lasting as brief as haiku.
April Haiku By Chelsea Zhu
after spring rainstorm
floating blossoms- waterfall
the sound of longing
Haiku Poetry Awards Finalist - Kate McClintock
kate h.m. is a Brooklynite enamored with public history and art. She considers writing to be a vital anchor in her life, and has been putting stories, poems, and songs to paper since she was little. Words are central to all of her creative pursuits, including her practices of photography, video, and painting. Her winning poem "perennial" is one of her first haikus, and encapsulates Love as she experiences it — both personified, and as an energetic force of profound change.
“perennial” by Kate McClintock
in your gale, i live —
blooming and bent on my stem
strong: alone and yours
Haiku Poetry Awards Finalist - Suzanna de Baca
Suzanna C. de Baca is a native Iowan, proud Latina, entpreneur, author and artist who is passionate about exploring change and transformation. A member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, her poetry has been published widely in literary magazines and journals. She is the recipient of the Derick Burleson Poetry Award and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in the rural town of Huxley, Iowa, population 4244.
Everything is an Altar by Suzanna C. de Baca
Come to the crossing.
Offer your burdens as gifts.
Lay them on the ground.
Haiku Poetry Awards Finalist - A.Abrash Walton
Abigail Abrash Walton serves as a faculty member at Antioch University, based in the Monadnock Region. She describes her winning poem "Stone Pond" as an epic haiku; each three-line stanza of the poem stands alone as a haiku, just as Monadnock means the mountain that stands alone, in the Abenaki language. Taken together, these conventional haikus become one cohesive and rich description of the sensate natural world in and surrounding one of the Monadnock Region's most beautiful water bodies at the height of summer abundance. Stone Pond is a special place with which the poet has been privileged to form a deep and lasting connection.
Stone Pond by A.Abrash Walton
At dusk, on water
Loon calls to the coming night
Owl replies, starlight
Pearl moon full and round
Casts long shadows trees to ground
Insects chorus, loud!
Rain pounds hitting leaves
Dawn arrives as forest breathes
Mist hangs in between
Mushrooms rise, endless
kinds, lift umbrella heads below
Here and there a toad
Chick-a-dee-dee-dee
Peewee’s call slides up and down
Nuthatch trumpet sound
Great blue heron lands
Newts scoot, crayfish hide
Tadpoles wriggle side to side
From flat, sliced globes
White yellow-centered spikes rise
Over green-gold eyes
Salamanders swim
Haphazardly toward brook
Sands shift to deep muck
As dragonflies buzz
Across sun-dappled water
Wind blows, breezes ramble
On filigreed wings
Iridescence announces
Damsel fly’s presence
Pileated drills
Cedar waxwings whistle by
Buzzard soars on high
Clouds wispy, giant, puff
Against blue expansive sky
West to East they fly
Freshwater mussels
Grey-green husks crack open wide
Opal white inside
Fish flit in shallows
At rare moments, a big one
Jumps aloft alone
Waves tumble and lap
Breaking the shore, lying prone
Pine needles and cones
Branches low dipping
Laurels pink blueberries bound
Stones the cove surround
Turtle basks on log
Neck and legs craned to the sun
Painted, wrinkled one
Beaver chew, wet leaves
Mud-tamped dams, sticks, fern fronds
Water fills new ponds
Mown path meanders
Grasses high on either side
On the edge, hawk cries
Flush startled turkey
Jewel weed and goldenrod
Field, seed, plant and pod
On high horizon
Sits Monadnock watching all
Large life towers small
Haiku Poetry Awards Finalist - Dee Slavutin
Dee Slavutin recently retired from a forty year career in financial services in New York City. Her first book of free-verse poetry is titled Wingspan Search for Food. Her first haiku chapbook, Zen in Hand---Haiku Gusts is forthcoming to be published by Finishing Line press. Her poetry, haiku in particular, challenges her pursuit of compressed boundless self-expression.
Aging in Haiku by Dee Slavutin
3
Takes off her diaper
Fingers tie new shoelaces
Shares her toys with friends
13
Cherry breast buds bud
Something red between her legs
Girlhood bliss kiss
23
Her breasts command him
The mirror silver streams them
Touches womanhood
33
Flowing milk in breasts
Suckling children ignite love
Motherhood is born
43
Stretch-t-back sports bra
Homework, pay bills, walk dog, cook
Wide smiles in sleep
53
Topless on French beach
Marriage bed erupts again
Black lingerie heaped
63
Her breasts are removed
Bed, still, is always quiet
Questions not answered
73
Sunbathe on nude beach
Loud bed is never quiet
Answers come on wings
83
Now, there is no their
Closes her eyes to see him
No one to hold her
93
Puts on her diaper
Fingers can’t tie shoelaces
You can have her toys
Haiku Poetry Awards Finalist - Ren Dirt
Sur Ren Dirt is a queer poet and life & spiritual coach currently living on unceded Tunxis, Wangunk, and Poquonock lands. They are the 2021 recipient of the Maverick Poet Award from The ruth weiss Foundation and are currently working on publishing their first book of poetry. Ren believes that queer joy is revolutionary and that living and loving in a queer body is an act of fierce and tender resistance. Their poem, "deliberate love," sown in late winter and ripened at the summer solstice, tells the story of a genderqueer femme word witch and a fairy king maple farmer as they learn to love each other deliberately.
deliberate love by Ren Dirt
symbiosis of
tuned in and attentive way —
the soil it can build
hot, sexy garden
belly, down in the warm dirt —
fuck up the carrots
harvest time, reap fruits
eating hearty things that stay —
preserve the bounty
healthy forest sap,
the late winter alchemy —
maples have my heart
Haiku Poetry Awards Finalist - Korey Ruhnow
‘long live’ by Korey Ruhnow
but where does this go?
this grief for you, fourteen, who –
– she deserved better.
Haiku Poetry Awards Finalist - Cassandra Bousquet
Cassandra Bousquet hails from Brisbane, California. She enjoys period dramas and rambling the woods and mountains. Her work is featured in the collaborative poem, "Breathe," which appeared in Nature & Culture 2021 Festival Book (Copenhagen: Red Press Kulturhuset Islands Brygge & Københavns Kommune, 2021). Her poem, “Dear Human at the Edge of Time” appears in the 2023 anthology of the same title, edited by Luisa A. Igloria, Aileen Cassinetto, and Jeremy S. Hoffman. In April 2023, she held the position of Writer in Residence at Bristol, Rhode Island's historic mansion and museum, Linden Place. Ms. Bousquet is the recent recipient of the Poetry Lighthouse prize for her poem "On the freeway," which will appear along with four more of her poems in the first annual Poetry Lighthouse anthology. Protecting the natural world is of the utmost importance to her.
Moving on by Cassandra Bousquet
Memories raked
like dry leaves–
A stump is a beginning.
Haiku Poetry Awards Finalist - Corey Stano
Corey Stano is a poet and artist living on the Space Coast of Florida. Their writing focuses nature, impermanence, and life as part of the LGBTQ+ community in Florida. Their work has previously appeared in Impostor: A Poetry Journal and the Vita & the Woolf Literary and Arts Journal. Their haiku "Chiaroscuro" is a love letter to thunderstorms and reflects the human ability to find beauty in fearful things.
Chiaroscuro by Corey Stano
electric white slash
tenebrous black blue grey swathes
brushstrokes of a storm
Haiku Poetry Awards Finalist - Dave Henderson
City Growth by Dave Henderson
Though in death, springs breath
Paths hide between grey and green
Mechanic bond myth
Haiku Poetry Awards Finalist - Maya
Maya Odim is a poet who explores ways speech is made up of both words and how they are said whose writing is interested in telling stories of transition like: death (transitioning from earth), dancing (transitioning through movement), and living elements in relation to each other (transitioning through interactions). Maya also works interdisciplinarily to choreograph movement from poems both she and others have written, working to mount performances in community with others and in an effort to build with others. Their haiku, "You All Ways" considers the way one's spirit lives on after their physical body transitions in death.
You All Ways by Maya Odim
He passed away. Then
in an elevator I
saw his tag, alive.