2019 Porad Award

Haiku Northwest is pleased to announce the sixteenth annual Porad Haiku Award. The contest is named for Francine Porad, founder of Haiku Northwest, former president of the Haiku Society of America, and editor for eight years of Brussels Sprout, an international journal of haiku and art. We welcome your haiku submissions!

Deadline: Submitted online or by email or postmarked by September 20, 2019 (late entries may be accepted, but only at the discretion of the contest organizers).

Prizes: $100 for first prize, $50 for second prize, and $25 for third prize, plus honorable mentions. Poems will also be published on the Haiku Northwest website (see past Porad Award Winners). Winners will be announced at Haiku Northwest’s annual Seabeck Haiku Getaway, to be held October 24–27, 2019.

Adjudication: Our 2019 judge is Tom Painting. Tom taught literature and creative writing at the School of the Arts in Rochester, New York for many years. He now teaches junior high humanities at the Paideia School in Atlanta, Georgia. Tom has been an active member of the Haiku Society of America for more than twenty years. In addition to haiku, his interests include hiking and bird watching.

Entry Fees: $1.00 per haiku (unlimited entries), in U.S. funds only. Please pay via PayPal (preferred) or by postal mail.

  • PayPal Payment (preferred): To pay by PayPal, please use the following PayPal button. Enter the number of dollars that matches the number of poems you’re submitting. Note that PayPal charges a fee for online payments, which Haiku Northwest is absorbing. If you wish to help offset these fees, feel free to include an extra dollar with your payment. To submit more than ten poems, please make a separate PayPal payment for additional poems. If you receive a transaction or confirmation number when you make your PayPal payment, please include that number with your submission, whether using the online submission form or by email (see below). Don’t worry about the confirmation number if you don’t receive it when paying. Then submit your poems (see “Submissions” below). PAYPAL BUTTON REMOVED HERE

  • Postal Payment: Please send checks/money orders made payable to “Haiku Northwest” or cash in U.S. dollars (at your own risk). Mail to the contest coordinator at the address listed below (see “Postal Submissions”).

Submissions: Poems submitted must be previously unpublished. Poems posted on public Facebook pages, blogs, or other websites are not eligible for submission. By submitting, you assert that your entries are previously unpublished and are solely your own original creations. If you submit using the online submission form, please do NOT also email any submissions—use one submission method only (it’s okay for payments to come separately, though, if you can’t pay via PayPal).

  • Online Form Submissions (preferred): Before submitting, please add up the number of poems you’re submitting, pay the entry fee of $1 per poem by PayPal (above), and make a note of your confirmation number (if you receive one). Then go to our online submission form and enter your name, address, email, phone number, PayPal confirmation number (if paying by PayPal), and your poems.

  • Email Submissions: We strongly prefer that you submit using our online submission form, but if it does not work for you, you may submit by email. When submitting by email, please type or paste your previously unpublished haiku in the body of the message (no attached files) and write “Porad Award Entries—[your name]” in the subject line. Include your name, address, email address, phone number, and method/date of payment above your haiku (include your PayPal transaction or confirmation number if PayPal provides one when you made your payment; please also indicate if you included any extra money to offset PayPal charges). If you are concerned about any special formatting characteristics, you may add a brief note after each applicable poem. Please do not number your poems. Send by September 20, 2019 to the contest coordinator, Ron Swanson, at taibokuan@gmail.com.

  • Postal Submissions: If neither the online form or email submissions are possible for you, please submit your previously unpublished poems on 8.5x11-inch or A4 paper (multiple poems on one sheet is preferred, more than one sheet is acceptable; do not use other sizes of paper or index cards). Please submit one copy of each sheet with your name, address, email address, and phone number. There is no need to send another copy without author identification for anonymous judging because all poems submitted by postal mail will be incorporated into an electronic file and then “shuffled” for anonymous judging. Submit your entries with payment to “Haiku Northwest,” postmarked by September 20, 2019, to:

Porad Haiku Award

c/o Ron Swanson

PO Box 4661

Rollingbay, WA 98061 USA

Additional Information: See past Porad Award results. If you have questions, please email WelchM@aol.com.