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The Porad Award for haiku was sponsored by the Washington Poets Association from 2004 to 2014, cosponsored by Haiku Northwest from 2008 to 2014, and taken over independently by Haiku Northwest in 2014 after the WPA dissolved in 2013. Prior to 2004, however, the WPA had at least three earlier haiku contests, in 1973, 1980, and 1994. For 1973, no record seems to remain as to who the judge was, or what the winning poems were, but the winners were as follows:
1st Sr. Phoebe Passler, OSB, Olympia, Washington
2nd Albert R. Marino, Ellwood City, Pennsylvania
3rd Constance Show, Lakewood, Colorado
In 1980, the judges were Patricia Loken, Frances Fagerlund, and Charlotte G. Warren, who selected the following “finalists” (winning poems not known, and may not have been awarded beyond the selection of these finalists):
Jerald T. Ball
Gloria Buckner
June E. Lamson
Bobbie Leiser
Molly See
Louise E. Widner
The Washington Poets Association also published at least eight haiku collections in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. These books were most likely associated with annual contests, but this is uncertain. Why their publication ceased is also unclear. In 1994, Francine Porad served as the judge and chose the following winners for a new one-off contest in celebration of Bashō’s 300th anniversary, cosponsored by Haiku Northwest:
1st At night
firefly stars kindle
my dream ashes
Robert Randall, Federal Way, Washington
2nd each
with its own shadow
ants in line
Kohjin Sakamoto, Kyoto, Japan
3rd cloud
tree sea sail
one wind one mind
Robert Gibson, Centralia, Washington
Francine Porad announced the preceding results on October 15, 1994 at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens, at an afternoon event celebrating Bashō’s 300th anniversary.
As mentioned, the Washington Poets Association published at least eight staple-bound haiku anthologies, starting in the 1970s. More information about these publications will be added as it is unearthed.
—Michael Dylan Welch, July 2020
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