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2024 ukiaHaiku Festival
April 28, 2024
As the New Year approaches, we hope you might find time to enter the 22nd ukiaHaiku Festival contest. Residents of Mendocino, Lake, Sonoma, and Humboldt counties, from kindergarten age through adult, can enter haiku in ten different categories (two for Spanish). There is also one category open to planet Earth, the Jane Reichhold International Award. Writing haiku, one of the simplest and most accessible forms of poetry, gives you a chance to capture and reflect upon being present in a special moment of experience.
There will be a celebration of winning haiku on April 28th, 2024 at the Civic Center Council Chambers where we invite winners to attend and read their haiku. Winners will receive awards, including gift certificates to local bookstores. We will also produce a publication of the winning haiku.
In recognition that the Pomo People are the original inhabitants of Mendocino County and that the name Ukiah itself is from a Pomo language, this year, we are making an open call to our Pomo neighbors to share haiku that are in Pomo languages or express a Pomo perspective. (These can be written in English, Spanish and Pomo Languages, with English translations.)
Haiku submissions can be made on our website: www.ukiahaiku.org
The website also has information on writing haiku including advice from the late Jane Reichhold (a haiku scholar), in her videoed lesson for local teachers (see “resources” at the bottom of the website page). These resources are intended to help show what our judges are looking for in a haiku.
If you have any questions, please contact Colter Jacobsen at Ukiahaikufestival@gmail.com or 415-832-0978.
If you prefer to submit haiku via snail mail, there are entry forms at the Mendocino County Library in Ukiah. Or you can print a pdf from our website and send it to:
ukiaHaiku Festival
Mendocino County Library
105 N Main St
Ukiah, CA 95482
Both online and snail mail submissions must be postmarked by February 8th.
Visit the website for more information and to read more winning haiku from previous festivals.
I hope you will participate with entries and come join the celebration!
Sincerely,
Melissa Eleftherion Carr
Ukiah Poet Laureate Emeritus 2021-2023
The ukiaHaiku Festival Youth Outreach was awarded a grant by the California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities and sponsored by North Coast Opportunities.