Haiku Northwest

11/24/2025

Winning haiku in the 2025 Porad Award sponsored by Haiku Northwest are now on YouTube. Winners were Chen-ou Liu, John S Green, and Sarah Paris, with honorable mentions by petro c. k., Edward Cody Huddleston, Lakshmi Iyer, C.X. Turner, Paula Sears, and John Barlow, selected from 555 submitted haiku. The judge was Jacquie Pearce, and Luke Brannon served as the contest coordinator. Video by Michael Dylan Welch. Check it out at https://youtu.be/3JGITh4dUdo.

Winning haiku in the 2025 Porad Award sponsored by Haiku Northwest. Winners were Chen-ou Liu, John S Green, Sarah Paris, with honorable mentions by petro c. ...

08/28/2025

You have just a few days to submit to Haiku Northwest's 2025 Porad Award. Entries are due August 31. For details, visit https://www.haikunorthwest.org/2025-events/2025-porad-award.

Celebrating the 22nd anniversary of the Porad Award in 2025!

10/28/2024

Haiku Northwest is pleased to share the news that David Berger has won first place in the 2024 Porad Haiku Awards. Second place went to Paula Sears, and third place to Kristen Lindquist, with honorable mentions to Carole MacRury, petro c.k., and Ravi Kiran. Alan S. Bridges served as the judge, and Angela Terry was contest coordinator, managing 623 haiku submissions from 129 poets. You can read all the winners and commentary at https://www.haikunorthwest.org/porad-haiku-award/2024-porad-award-winners. Winners were just announced at the 2024 Seabeck Haiku Getaway.

05/03/2024

Haiku North America in San Francisco, September 24–28, 2025

Haiku North America is pleased to announce that its next conference will take place September 24 to 28, 2025 in downtown San Francisco. Our conference theme is “Discover.” We’ll be meeting and staying at the Holiday Inn, on the west end of one of the city’s famed cable car lines. This hotel offers dramatic city and bay views, and convenient access to a variety of tourist attractions, restaurants, and other amenities. September also offers San Francisco’s best weather of the year, with warm temperatures without the summer fog. We look forward to having you join us. Watch for website updates and other details soon. Will you be able to join us?

04/17/2024

April 17 is International Haiku Poetry Day. How will you be celebrating?

If you'd like to attend a Zoom meeting hosted by the Washington region of the Haiku Society of America at 7:00 p.m. (Pacific Time Zone), please email Richard Tice at [email protected] for the Zoom link. This event will focus on haiga, with presentations by the following poets: David Berger, John Burgess, Emily Kane, David Lasky, Dorothy Avery Matthews, Carole MacRury, Sally Penley, petro ck, Susan Roberts, Sheila Sondik, Ann Spiers, and Michael Dylan Welch.

11/15/2023

Two 2023 Seabeck Haiku Getaway group photos (waving and thinking about waving).

11/01/2023

Haiku Northwest is pleased to announce the winners of the 2023 Porad Award, judged by Billie Wilson (with Angela Terry as contest coordinator). Congratulations to the following winners:

1st Place: Frank Hooven
2nd Place: Terri L. French
3rd Place: Lesley Anne Swanson

Honorable mentions went to P. H. Fischer, Michele Rule, and Frank Hooven. You can read all the results and commentary from Billie Wilson at https://www.haikunorthwest.org/porad-haiku-award/2023-porad-award-winners. Thank you, too, to all 118 poets who submitted 573 poems from 12 countries. Congratulations to all the winners!

09/13/2023

We are saddened to report that haiku poet Bob Redmond passed away of cancer last night, 12 September 2023, in Burien, Washington. He was 57 years old.

08/01/2023

2023 Seabeck Haiku Getaway Opens for Registration on August 1

Haiku Northwest is pleased to announce that registration opens on August 1 for this year’s Seabeck Haiku Getaway, to be held October 26–29, 2023, and that our new registrar is Susan Lee Roberts. Our weekend theme is “gifts of nature.” Our featured guest is naturalist Jeff Hoagland, with a special appearance by David Lasky, leading us in a haiku comics craft workshop. We’ll visit Scenic Beach State Park, share “encounters with nature,” and enjoy numerous readings, workshops, and presentations. Please visit https://www.haikunorthwest.org/seabeck-haiku-getaway to learn more about this year’s retreat. If you have a reading, workshop, or presentation to propose, please contact Michael Dylan Welch at [email protected].

How YOU can participate in this year’s Seabeck Haiku Getaway

Can’t make it to Seabeck this year? We still want to hear from you. Please send us a postcard with a haiku and/or other message (please print carefully) that we can display in our meeting room at this year’s event, scheduled for October 26 to 29, 2023. Please pick a postcard that shows where you live or fits our theme of “gifts of nature” (optional). To request the postal address where you can send your postcard (to be received by October 25, 2023), please email Michael Dylan Welch at [email protected].

Seabeck Haiku Getaway Haiku Northwest sponsors an annual haiku retreat every autumn at the lovely Seabeck Conference Center in Seabeck, Washington, about 90 minutes west of Seattle. We offer a stimulating weekend of haiku sharing, study, and celebration, with a mix of readings, workshops,

07/12/2023

Haiku Northwest is pleased to announce the 2023 Porad Award. Our judge this year is Billie Wilson, and our new contest coordinator is Angela Terry. Entries are due by August 31, 2023, and winners will be announced on October 28, 2023, at the Seabeck Haiku Getaway. Thank you to both Billie and Angie for their service in making this contest possible. Learn more at https://www.haikunorthwest.org/2023-events/2023-porad-award (submissions open July 15).

Haiku Northwest is pleased to announce its nineteenth annual Porad Haiku Award. The contest is named for Francine Porad, founder of Haiku Northwest, former president of the Haiku Society of America, and editor for eight years of Brussels Sprout, an international journal of haiku and art. We welcome

05/03/2023

The Gresham Japanese Garden welcomes Michael Dylan Welch for two upcoming haiku workshops. The first is "How to Haiku," on Zoom on May 16, 2023 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., for $20. The second is "The Nature of Haiku," in-person at the garden (at 124 S Main Avenue in Gresham, Oregon) on September 10, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., for $45. To register, please visit https://www.greshamjapanesegarden.org/haiku-workshops/.

11/21/2022

Check out these new additions to the Haiku Northwest website:

2022 Porad Award Winners (with commentary and video)
https://www.haikunorthwest.org/porad-haiku-award/2022-porad-award-winners

The video of the 2022 Porad Award Winners is also available on YouTube at https://youtu.be/0YWYlJ8dyqU. Also check out other videos on the Haiku Northwest YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/ (click the Subscribe button!).

Seabeck Haiku Getaway 2022 Kukai Winners
https://www.haikunorthwest.org/seabeck-haiku-getaway/seabeck-haiku-getaway-2022/seabeck-haiku-getaway-2022-kukai-winners
(congrats to Rich Schnell for first place, Beki Reese for second place, and Antoinette Cheung, Helen Ogden, and Lisa Gerlits for a third-place tie, plus other winners)

New and expanded memorial pages for the following deceased members (thanks for help on these pages to Michael Dylan Welch, Connie Hutchison, Curtis Manley, and Dean Summers):

Robert Gibson (1923–2003)
https://www.haikunorthwest.org/poems-by-haiku-northwest-members/robert-gibson-1923-2003
Jay Haskins (1934–2022)
https://www.haikunorthwest.org/poems-by-haiku-northwest-members/jay-haskins-1934-2022
Winifred Jaeger (1926–2022)
https://www.haikunorthwest.org/poems-by-haiku-northwest-members/winifred-jaeger-1926-2022

Also look for an article about haiku scholar and translator Kenneth Yasuda (1914–2002), who graduated from the University of Washington, at https://www.haikunorthwest.org/poems-by-haiku-northwest-members/kenneth-yasuda-1914-2002.

Winning haiku in the 2022 Porad Award sponsored by Haiku Northwest. Winners were Jay Friedenberg, Janice Doppler, and Edward Cody Huddleston, with honorable ...