Haiku Happenings

This Month’s Article

Check out this month’s article:

Haiku: The World’s Longest Poem

by Jim Kacian

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New Contests

Check out the latest contests

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Publications

Explore publications

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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.

MEMBERSHIPS

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.

ARCHIVE

Archives comprise Essays, Articles, NZ Haiku Showcase
and Haiku Commentary.

Contest Results

HPNC Haiku, Senryu, Tanka & Haibun (US)

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Kusamakura Haiku Contest (Japan)

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Polish Haiku Contest (Poland)

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Triveni Haiku Awards (India)

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 WHJ Summer Contest (Wales)

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Ama Pearls Waka Contest (US)

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Basho Memorial Haiku Contest (Japan)

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Sanford Goldstein Tanka Contest (US)

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TSA Tanka Prose Contest (US)

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Morioka Haiku Contest (Japan)

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Irish Haiku Society Contest 

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News & Events

If it’s February …

… it must be NaHaiWriMo time! National Haiku Writing Month will supply you with a daily prompt to get the creative juices flowing and write a haiku a day. Read more here.

Online Haiku Workshops

When: Five online workshops available, weekly from January 27.
Who: Various tutors on topics including haiku, senryu and rengay (Sherry and Zoe Grant from New Zealand end the series on February 24).
Cost: Unknown, may be free.
Open to: May be only for Australians, but the tutors are international and as the workshops are being delivered online …
More details, and an email contact, from the website.

Japan-theme events in NZ

Feb 11: The World of Ikebana, a lecture and workshop for beginners, 3-5pm, Embassy of Japan, Level 18, 100 Willis St, Wellington, free but please register. Read more here.
Feb 15: Introduction to Taiko Drumming, noon-1.30pm, 32 Brooklyn Rd, Wellington, $15. Read more here.
Feb 15: Drum Struck, noon-4pm, Aotea Sq, Auckland, free. Read more here.
Feb 22: Japan Day, 10.30am-4.30pm, Auckland Showgrounds, free admission. Read more here.
March 21: Taranaki Japan Day, 11am-4pm, Bell Block Hall, near New Plymouth, $2 entry. Read more here.
To March 29: The Superlative Artistry of Japan, 10am-4pm, Whirinaki Whare Taonga, Upper Hutt. Read more here.

Journal News

1: Welcome to Only Human, a new journal for senryu, kyoka, sanbun and haiga. Edited by David Oates and AJ Wentz, it will publish 3 times a year online. Submissions for the debut issue are open throughout February. Read more here.
2: The English-Speaking Union of Japan will disband after nearly 30 years on March 31. The deadline for final submissions is February 25. Read more here.
3: Don Baird and Stephen Bailey, editors of Under the Bashō, have decided to close the online journal. However, all content published between 2013 and 2025 (except for 2021 post-Covid) has been converted to PDF files for archiving and distribution. They will be offered for inclusion on THF‘s digital library and within the Living Haiku Anthology website as the UtB domain will be allowed to expire. The Living Haiku Anthology and Living Senryu Anthology have been rehomed and will continue (submission details available in Publications). “Please do not hesitate to download the Under the Bashō annual journal as PDFs as a record of so much wonderful contributions by haiku poets from around the world. Your own poems may be among them.”
4: As of January 2026, whiptail, an online journal of one-line poems has closed to submissions. The editors hope it is a hiatus.

Congratulations

To Stephen Norton who has received a Third Prize in the Kusamakura Haiku Contest (Japan).

To Maureen Sudlow who has been Commended in the Polish Haiku Contest (Poland).

To Sue Courtney who has won the Grand Prize in the Morioka Haiku Contest (Japan).

To Sundeia Lomberg, Sue Courtney and Jack Wood who all had haiku selected for the anthology of the Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest (Japan).

To Catherine Lagae who has received a Merit Award in the Ito-En Oi Ocha Haiku Contest (Japan).

End Notes

January 31, 2026: To mark the shortest month, I have posted what may be one of the shortest essays we’ve had. Succinct though it is, the essay by Jim Kacian does, however, emphasise the power of haiku. The Contest listing has been updated through to April and, as you’ll see above there is a new journal calling for submissions in February that spotlights senryu. Co-editor David Oates made a presentation on senryu at last year’s Haiku North America conference and you can read a small post about that here.

It has been a sombre start to the year in several parts of the upper North Island with widespread flooding and storm damage. Here in Tauranga, eight lives were lost in two landslides after an historic 24-hour rainfall. The legal implications of those tragedies will play out for a long time to come, but in the meantime families in New Zealand, Sweden and China have lost loved ones. Our thoughts are also with a family in Kiribati. Kia kaha. – Sandra