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.

The entries received showed just how many ways a single season can be seen, felt, and distilled into haiku

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.