First
Kady Butler
Spiraling snowflakes
Small hands opening wide, feel
Their way down to earth.
Second
Isaiah Gray
Sweet serenity
As the stream flows steadily
Through the quiet wood
Third
Jack Shearer
The smell of that lake
Warms my everlasting soul
When the duck flies high
Honorable Mention
Maria Batyreva
I close my eyes and
My tiptoes meet with wet grass –
What a pleasure to feel it!
Honorable Mention
Anna Sella
delight in blue eyes
running with jar in hand
chasing fireflies
JUDGE’S REMARKS:
The contestants employed their prescribed theme well, and indeed I found their entries a pleasure to read and quite delightful. Original, concrete imagery is a crucial element of the best haiku, and I was particularly impressed by the fresh imagery of most of the poems. Among the entries, a certain few held my attention longer than others, and while reading all the haiku several times and studying them at length, I found myself being pulled back to these few again and again. Their authors created a fine balance of nature and human nature, and the haiku continue to resonate. Congratulations to the winners and a deep bow to all the contestants for depicting meaningful experiences through haiku. — Ferris Gilli