We are pleased to Announce our 2025 Haiku and Tanka Contest!
The 2025 Haiku and Tanka Contest
Skipping Stones Magazine and the 2025 Asian Celebration
Invite your Best Nature Haiku and/or Tankas by Monday, 5 May 2025
Some exemplary Haiku poems (by Mira Yang, age 9, New York) to get you started:
1. Bright and secretive,
The moon is like a black cat
Playing in the night
2. A golden sunbeam
Smiling on the forest trees
Sweet like warm honey
3. Winter goes, spring comes
A brave and daring flower
Breaking through the ice
These three Haiku poem were submitted last year (along with a number of other wonderful haiku poems) by Mira’s writing instructor Ms. Samantha Schnell at the Writopia Lab, New York. Also see our Autumn 2024 issue for last year’s published poems.
Your Haiku (and/or Tanka) entries should be ready for display. Use 8.5 x 11 paper and feel free to include your original nature art to illustrate your Haiku and/or Tanka. Up to 5 (FIVE) haiku or tanka entries can be sent by each student. Only K-12 students (ages up to 18) are eligible to enter the Contest.
Selected entries will be displayed at the 2025 Asian Celebration in Eugene. All entries will also be considered for publication in the Autumn 2025 issue of Skipping Stones Magazine as well as our website. Download the 2025 Haiku/Tanka Contest flyer here.
Haiku and Tanka (short song, in Japanese) are both traditional poetry forms that come from Japan.
* Haiku consists of three lines. The first line and third line both have five syllables and the middle line has seven (But we will not be very strict).
* Haiku appeals to the senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) and it touches the heart.
* Tanka is a 31-syllable poem and has 5 lines with 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count, respectively.
* A maximum of 5 haiku or tanka entries are allowed from one student. If you are entering a poem that consists of a number of haiku or tankas, the poem length should not exceed 30 lines. Do not send your entries for consideration to other publishers simultaneously. Please wait until a decision is reached by us.
* Nature art can accompany your Haiku or Tanka, and it is encouraged!
With your entries (preferably, on the backside, if sending a paper entry) provide this information:
* Your full name and age or grade level
* Your teacher and school’s name, as well as your or your teacher’s e-mail
* Your mailing address
* When you enter the contest, it’s implied that it is YOUR original haiku or tanka, and that we can display it at the exhibit, and publish it in the magazine and our website, if chosen for publication. Please include a statement by one of your parents or teachers giving us the permission.
Haiku entries must be received by 5 PM (PST) on Monday, May 5, 2025 (by 5 PM on 5/5/25). If you are sending by mail, please send by Monday, the 5th of May.
Skipping Stones Magazine office located at 166 W. 12th Avenue, Eugene, Oregon 97401 USA. We’re in the Odd Fellows Building on the corner of W. 12th Ave & Charnelton Street in Eugene.
You can also choose to send your Haiku or Tanka entries electronically if you wish. In that case, send HiRez .pdf, .jpeg or .tiff files of your artwork along with Haiku/Tanka. Haiku and Tanka without art can be sent as a part of your email text or as a pdf file or Word .doc or .docx file.
To send entries by e-mail, use our email id: editor(AT)skippingstones(DOT)org
If your Haiku or Tanka or nature art is published, you’ll receive a complimentary copy of the Autumn issue.
We look forward to seeing your Haiku and/or Tanka (with or without nature art) by 5 pm on 5 May 2025.
(PS: May is celebrated as the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Also, did you know that Cinco de Mayo is celebrated by Mexicans and Mexican Americans to commemorate Mexico’s victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla, Mexico on May 5, 1862.)
Here are a few Haiku and Tanka art entries from our previous year’s contest. These haiku and tanka entries appeared in our 2022 Awards Issue, Vol. 34, no.1.
