Summer Competition 2025 — Results: Winning Haiku and Commentary
Our first ever Wales Haiku Journal competition has shown us just how many ways a single season can be seen, felt, and distilled into haiku. Entries arrived from across the world, each one offering a moment of stillness, clarity, or surprise — proof of how alive the haiku form remains today.
Our judges — Joe Woodhouse, C.X. Turner, and Peter Shipman — were guided by three touchstones: seasonal atmosphere, originality and poetic impact, and fidelity to the haiku spirit. Among the many voices we received, three poems rose with particular clarity, carrying these qualities with grace and leaving a lasting resonance.
We are delighted to present the winners below, alongside commentary from our judges.
First Place Winner: Earl R. Keener
midflight
sunlight turns
a finch to gold
This haiku captured all three judges’ imaginations. Its clarity and restraint are matched by a subtle emotional depth that deepens with each reread. The image is vivid and precise: a finch, midflight, momentarily transformed by sunlight. It’s a real moment, yet rendered with such delicacy it feels almost mythic.
Nothing is wasted. The break after “midflight” creates a pause, offering space to notice — as the poet has — something barely there. The transformation into gold is not only visual but emotional, conjuring awe without naming it. It speaks of attention, of being present enough to witness fleeting beauty.
Though the season isn’t named, the warmth and light evoke midsummer with quiet confidence. This haiku also reflects the WHJ aesthetic: rooted in the natural world, minimalist, and emotionally resonant without sentimentality.
What made this our winner was its balance — image and feeling, simplicity and wonder, all held within three understated lines. It lingers like the light itself and reminds us what haiku can do when every word, and every pause, is earned.
C.X Turner
Second Place Winner: D W Brydon
sunlit hospice
a seagull tilts
into the blue
This haiku stood out for its emotional subtlety and quiet strength. The phrase sunlit hospice sets a tender scene with understated weight, drawing us into a space where light and life begin to recede. There is a softness to the tone, a golden hush that evokes the final hour of light.
The second line brings gentle motion: a seagull tilting, familiar yet newly reverent. Its flight into the blue becomes a metaphor for departure — restrained but deeply affecting. There is no sentimentality here. Instead, the haiku offers space for reflection, holding presence and absence in delicate balance.
As judges, we appreciated how this poem lets meaning emerge gradually. It captures both human experience and the natural world with grace, without overstatement. It reflects the WHJ aesthetic through precision, seasonality, emotional depth, and a spaciousness that invites the reader to linger.
A poem of quiet departure, it allows its light to dim gently, staying with us long after the final line.
C.X Turner
Third Place Winner: Nada Mutlaq
firefly glow–
another memory
I can’t hold onto
I love how this haiku dares to capture something not typically assigned to the concept of summer: melancholy. It announces summer implicitly through the familiar image of a firefly flickering in the darkness, and yet the overall picture is not one of joyful summer nights capturing the bioluminescent bug in one’s backyard. Rather it is a solitary, quiet portrait, one of wistful nostalgia, perhaps towards those nights just previously mentioned, or perhaps the intangibility of memory itself. But like with all great haiku, there is not one way to interpret the poem. Perhaps what the haiku seeks to convey is that we shouldn’t attempt to trap our memories in jars. That the beauty of memory flickers, illuminates something precious in sudden and painfully fleeting ways, but though reclaimed by the dark, like the firefly, will gleam again.
Peter Shipman
Highly Commended
she says
you just had to be there
pressed poppies
Edward Cody Huddleston
warm breeze
in the rising tempo
his natural tongue
Joshua Gage
sun on river water
my grandfather
lost among pigeons
Almila Dükel
tea time at midnight
laughing under the Perseids
mom's freckles scatter
Mariya Gusev
particle burst…
the hydrangea theory
of sky
Lorraine A Padden
rain coming
a boy points his gun
at the clouds
Stephen Toft
how did I get here?
a blueberry rolls down
the bus aisle
D W Brydon
first catch
of the orb weaver’s morning
pine pollen
Eric Sundquist
a ladybug
traces my lifeline
summer solstice
Rowan Beckett Minor
dashing through sprinklers
the laughter
of youth
Gareth Nurden
junipers
a ministry
of waxwings
Jeff Hoagland
small white–
the power to lift
a whole day
Tony Williams
With Thanks + What's Next...
Our heartfelt thanks go to everyone who entered this first Summer Competition. The winning poems represent just a few of the highlights from a rich field of work, and we are grateful for the care and creativity that filled our inbox.
As the light begins to turn and the year moves on, we look forward to seeing how autumn will inspire you. Submissions for the Autumn Edition are now open - you can find more information here - we can’t wait to read the moments of stillness, wonder, and clarity you’ll share with us next.
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