Porad Haiku Award

Winners of Haiku Northwest’s Porad Award appear here. The contest began under the auspices of the Washington Poets Association, which had sponsored occasional haiku contests since the organization began in 1971, even publishing at least eight books of haiku from its contests in the late 1970s and early 80s. In 2004, at the suggestion of Michael Dylan Welch, the WPA started running a haiku contest annually, which Michael proposed naming after Francine Porad, the doyenne of haiku poetry in the Pacific Northwest, editor of Brussels Sprout haiku magazine, past president of the Haiku Society of America, and founder, in 1988, of Haiku Northwest. In 2008, Haiku Northwest started cosponsoring this contest, and continued as cosponsor until 2014, when it took over sole sponsorship after the WPA dissolved in 2013. The following are links to all the contest winners and judges’ comments since the Porad Award for haiku began in 2004. PDF files for 2010 and later awards are also available for viewing or download.

• Submission guidelines for the 2025 contest (Deadline: August 31, 2025)

• Porad Award Flyers (PDF files, from 2010 to the present)

Past Winners and Judges

• 2024 Alan S. Bridges (with video)

• 2023 Billie Wilson (with video)

• 2022 Lenard D. Moore (with video)

• 2021       Susan Antolin (with video)

• 2020       Julie Warther (with video)

• 2019       Tom Painting (with video)

• 2018       Francine Banwarth (with video)

• 2017       Terry Ann Carter

• 2016       Charles Trumbull

• 2015       Carolyn Hall

• 2014       John Stevenson

• 2013       Ce Rosenow

• 2012       Deborah P Kolodji

• 2011       Susan Constable

• 2010       Penny Harter

• 2009       Michael Dylan Welch

• 2008       Margaret Chula

• 2007       William J. Higginson

• 2006       Ruth Yarrow

• 2005       Christopher Herold

• 2004       Michael Dylan Welch

Early Washington Poets Association Haiku Contests

Commentary on the 2005 winning poems will be added when it is located. The last ten of these annual links used to point to the website for the Washington Poets Association, which sponsored the contest from 2004 to 2013, but the organization no longer exists.