2025
Competition Awards

With many thanks to Michele L. Harvey, this year’s judge, Modern Haiku is pleased to announce the winners of the Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Awards Competition for 2025. The purpose of this competition is to honor the life and work of Bob Spiess, editor of Modern Haiku from 1978 to his death on March 13, 2002.

This year’s theme: Haiku are to be written in the spirit of the following "Speculation" (Robert Spiess, A Year's Speculations on Haiku, Modern Haiku Press, 1995):

A haiku is mystery in the sense that the suchness of things (truth) which cannot be conveyed by conceptual language may suddenly become appar­ent through aesthetic expression of a juxtaposition of perceptions.

Michele writes:

When I was first contacted to adjudicate the 2025 Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Awards, I was taken aback when told I’d receive around 500 haiku to read and choose from. It seemed a daunting prospect, owing to both the sheer number of poems and the allowed timeframe. I was filled with doubt about having enough knowledge or prowess to be an apt judge. Haiku is a deceptively simple form, but like any art its true treasure lies largely beyond grasping. Haiku is hard to nail down by description alone, its gift is only posited through the immediate reading and experiencing of it.

To prepare I read Robert Spiess’s Speculations again, as well as the past awards and commentaries. Once I began to read the 2025 submissions I was hooked. This year’s chosen Speculation became my guidepost. Juxtaposition and its ensuing ‘AHA moment’ have always been the essential core of transcendent haiku. And this year’s submissions did not disappoint. I was deeply moved and surprised by the variety, beauty, and wondrous use of juxtaposition in these shimmering poems. It’s been a most memorable read for me and I send my heartfelt gratitude to each and every poet for submitting. Please know each poem was read multiple times, carefully and reverently, to be fully savored and enjoyed. My sole complaint is that I could only name a few top favorites.

~ Michele L. Harvey, Judge

First Place: Julie Schwerin

over the hill . . .
the moss
taking hold

Some things are undeniable from the start and for me, this poem was just that. Because of its many layers of meaning and in spite of its clipped brevity, it kept rising to the top. It shadowed me through multiple re-readings and new-found favorites. I just couldn’t shake its “taking hold” over me.

Second Place: Dian Duchin Reed

sun not up yet
the shower steams
the day open

This imagery couldn’t be more simple, nor could it be more surprising. The juxtaposition of its central line is totally unexpected but drawn with precision. Each line builds on the one before, until the unexpected deliv­ery of L3, which had me gasp, “of course!” Simply effective!

Third Place: Allyson Whipple

flash in the pan redwing blackbird

I was through this extremely brief one-liner before I could think! Was there actually room for a juxtaposition in it? Conciseness alone, can designate a potent haiku. I had to read this multiple times and with dif­fering speed, to make sure to savor every drop.

Honorable Mention Awards (unranked)

white edgeworthia
where frost melts to sunlight —
the poem’s first line

Rebecca Lilly

Nature’s subtlety and diversity makes for endless subjects for the poet. The small things matter in nature as in haiku and this poem unifies both the experience and the experiencer seamlessly together as one.

many deaths
on the beach
where they hatch

Jeffrey Ferrara

Life and nature are not personal. Change is inevitable for all things. The first two lines for a person of my generation, mean one thing. But the last line forces me into the present for a larger, non-personal perspective of the world. Deftly done.

spring
stars
let
me
find
a
ladder

Matthew Markworth

Sometimes unusual formatting in haiku can feel forced, but not so with this poem. I fell down the rungs of this poem’s ladder, as easily as rain down a rain chain. Who hasn’t been transported by a sky full of stars? This delightful poem expresses that experience and sentiment perfectly.

fish tanks
small oceans
without resources

Pervaiz Salik

This poem speaks to both the specific and the immense. The pivoting second line not only sets up for the third, it also speaks to where we find ourselves now ecologically. A small but highly impactful poem.

grief
your shadow
taking pictures

Owen Bullock

This poem has the prized haiku trait of showing not telling. It does so by pointing the reader, line by line. Where else could a shadow take pictures, but in a past photo or video? And in seeing that shadow taking pictures, you also see the one grieving the other’s loss. So much here to feel and experience from a poem that on its surface, seems insubstantial.

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