Haiku Happenings
This Month’s Article
Check out this month’s article:
An Alernative Meaning to Haiku
by Robert Epstein
New Contests
Check out the latest contests
Publications
Explore publications
News & Events
National Poetry Day NZ
August 28 marks National Poetry Day in Aotearoa New Zealand. The website, which will include a calendar of events and a competition listing, is here.
Journal news/Submissions
1. Fresh Words magazine is seeking 3-line haiku for its Rain and Roots: A Nature & Earth Haiku Anthology. Limit 7 haiku.
Closes: August 15. Full details from the website. (Click on the title.)
2. Nigerian poet Uchechukwu Onyedikam succeeds Kiwi Anne Curran from August as editor of the haiku pages in the monthly Free XpresSion magazine. He is calling for submissions of up to 5 haiku, tanka and/or haibun.
Submit: By email. Not sure but asap would be helpful I’m sure.
Passion for Ginko
Ginko Walks on Youtube is a “passion project” of P H Fischer, with the first episodes featuring a walk with one poem from A New Resonance 14 (2025, Red Moon Press) “hopefully inspiring reflections and new poems along the way”. See more here.
Japan-theme events in NZ
July 1-30: Discovering Japanese Food Culture through Food Replicas, weekdays only, Embassy of Japan, Wellington. Read more here.
To July 11: Currents Calling Home: Ai Iwane & Mānawatia te Wai, Hastings Art Gallery. Read more here.
July 17-August 30: Futatsu no Sekai / Two Worlds by Robin White and Taeko Ogawa, Waiheke Island Community Art Gallery. Read more here.
To July 26: Ceramics exhibition by Shigemitsu Ohashi, Tuesday-Sunday 10am-4pm, Toi Mahara, Waikanae. Read more here.
New Books
Haiku 2026 comprises 100 haiku from 2025 selected by the editors of the award-winning Haiku 21, Lee Gurga and Scott Metz. Ordering details here.
A Picnic Sky gathers selected haiku from Haiku Girl Summer 2023-2025 and appears in both paperback and e-reader editions. Ordering details here.
Red Moon Press keeps pumping out collections by individual authors, the latest being True North by Angela Terry. See the catalogue here.
Vale Bruce Ross, 1945-2026
My apologies for I have only just discovered that poet and editor Bruce Ross died on January 12. Read an obituary for Bruce here. Tributes that outline more fully his contributions to haiku may be read on the Autumn Moon website, the haiku journal he founded and edited. Bruce was kind enough to give permission to allow Haiku NewZ to republish some of his essays: The Essence of Haiku, Sincerity and the Future of Haiku, and Narratives of the Heart: Haibun.
winter solstice
the houselight left on
for our return
Bruce Ross
A Vast Sky, an Anthology of Contemporary World Haiku
(eds Bruce Ross, Koko Kato, Dietmar Tauchner, Patricia Prime, 2015)
Contest Results
Japan Fair Haiku Contest (US)
Robert Spiess Haiku Contest (US)
Haiku Association of Sri Lanka Contest
Solitary Daisy Haiku Contest (Canada)
British Haiku Society Awards (UK)
Magic of Maples Haiku Contest (UK)
Golden Triangle Haiku Contest (US)
Betty Drevniok Haiku Award (Canada)
Basho-an Haiku Contest (Japan)
Kaji Aso Haiku Contest (US)
Maya Lyubenova Haiku Contest (Bulgaria)
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.
End Notes
July 1, 2026: I’ve been spring cleaning in midwinter and as a result feel virtuous, but also keep hearing an elderly relative’s comment made to me when I was just a schoolgirl. “Housework,” she said with disgust in her voice. “Yopu just have to keep doing it.” (Quentin Crisp, who famously said he never dusted, reckoned that after 4 years, no further dust accumulated!) If you need a break and something thoughtful to read, why not try this month’s article, which tackles the big subject of meaning in haiku. Make a cuppa first though, as it’s intriguing and a good use of your time. Contest listings have been updated, so far to the beginning of September bus, as always, when new deadlines are announced, I’ll add them – for instance, the Fujisan Tanka Contest, which usually closes on September 20, hasn’t announced its 2026 dates as yet. – Sandra
Events
2026
August 14-16: Cradle of American Haiku Festival, Mineral Point, Wisconsin, USA. Read more here.
October 22-25: Seabeck Getaway, Haiku Northwest, Washington State, USA. Guest speaker: Susan Antolin. Read more here.
2027
Haiku North America: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.