Porad Haiku Award

Winners of Haiku Northwest’s Porad Award appear here. The Washington Poets Association has occasionally sponsored 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. The following are links to all the contest winners and judges’ comments since the Porad Award for haiku began in 2004.

Submission guidelines for the 2022 contest (Deadline: September 20, 2022)

Early Washington Poets Association Haiku Contests

Past Winners and Judges

• 2004 Michael Dylan Welch

• 2005 Christopher Herold

• 2006 Ruth Yarrow

• 2007 William J. Higginson

• 2008 Margaret Chula

• 2009 Michael Dylan Welch

• 2010 Penny Harter

• 2011 Susan Constable

• 2012 Deborah P Kolodji

• 2013 Ce Rosenow

• 2014 John Stevenson

• 2015 Carolyn Hall

• 2016 Charles Trumbull

• 2017 Terry Ann Carter

• 2018 Francine Banwarth (with video)

• 2019 Tom Painting (with video)

• 2020 Julie Warther (with video)

• 2021 Susan Antolin (with video)

• 2022 Lenard D. Moore (with video)

Commentary on the 2005 winning poems will be added when it is located. The first ten of these 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.