2024 Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems — Long List

The Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems recognize excellence and innovation in English-language haiku and senryu published in juried public venues during each calendar year. The Touchstone Awards are an international affair, as English-language haiku and senryu nominations come from around the globe — our heartfelt thanks to the editors, contest coordinators, and poets who nominated poems. In 2024, we received 1405 distinct entries submitted from 43 journals, 8 contests, and 301 individuals in 31 countries.

In the first round, the five panel members consider the anonymous roster, and each selects what they perceive to be the ten most exceptional poems. These are combined to become the Long List. In the second round, the panel ranks their top selections from the Long List, of which the highest-scoring poems become the Short List. In the final round, the panel selects the top haiku and senryu from the Short List to be recognized as the Award winners for 2024.

Many thanks to our distinguished panel: Gregory Longenecker, Marianne Paul, Agnes Eva Savich, Dan Schwerin, and Mary Stevens. They put much time and effort, and especially careful thought and evaluation, into this challenging selection process.

Please join us in cheering on these fine poets!

Robin Smith
Coordinator, Touchstone Awards for Individual Poem

caesarean section —
what it costs the river
to move a stone
— Meredith Ackroyd, #FemkuMag, Issue 35

snowberry clearwing
the mouthfeel of a name
for our baby
— Meredith Ackroyd, #FemkuMag, Issue 35

hospice bed
just enough space to sit
at the edge
— Susan Antolin, Kingfisher #9

white suburb—
the diversity
of stone walls
— Brad Bennett, Prune Juice Journal, Issue #42

recent layoff —
the weight of the kids
climbing his back
— Shiva Bhusal, Frogpond 47:3

Ramadan sunset
sharing dates
in the ruins
— Mariangela Canzi, folk ku, Issue 3

thrift store
do I look like
an American
— Yu Chang, Upstate Dim Sum 2024/II

train from Ukraine…
in his piggy-bank
forget-me-not seeds
— Cezar Ciobica, Frogpond 47:3

hospice window
my mother counts
shades of green
— Cezar Ciobica, The Haiku Foundation Kukai, July 2024

church bells
my daughter’s laugh
becomes religion
— Shane Coppage, Prune Juice Journal, Issue #44

one buttonhole begins to sing the winter wind
— Robert Epstein, whiptail: journal of the single-line poem, Issue 11

first day of fall
I find an acorn
in my breast
— Adele Evershed, Wales Haiku Journal, Autumn 2024

yes*
— P. H. Fischer, hedgerow #146

the heft
of a spring cabbage
her laughter
— Emily Fogle, Geppo, XLIX:3, August 2024

curly fries i morph into a flock of sea gulls
— Susan Beth Furst, Trash Panda #7

resting on the bench
at the end of the path
someone else’s mother
— Ben Gaa, hedgerow #145

single-use petal
the delicate margins
of existence
— Mark Gilbert, 14th Polish International Haiku Contest

just a highway till that white cross
— Benedict Grant, Blithe Spirit 34.2

lambing
      the slow descent
            of a raven
— Lorraine Haig, haikuKATHA, Issue 37

buffeting wind
a child blowing bubbles
from her wounds
— John Hawkhead, Martin Lucas Haiku Award 2024

habitat loss
a woodpecker’s
. . . _ _ _ . . .
— John Hawkhead, tsuri-doro, a small journal of haiku and senryu, Issue #20

sunrise
the river
changes key
— Lee Hudspeth, The Heron’s Nest, Volume XXVI, Number 1

after despair name your next favorite color
— Peter Jastermsky, Fresh Out Magazine, Nov. 8, 2024

open season—
no bag limits
on women
— Julie Bloss Kelsey, #FemkuMag, Issue 37

. . . ings and rift in gs an dr if ting san dri ft ing sand . . .

— Julie Bloss Kelsey, The Pan Haiku Review, Issue 3

another mother’s day band aid for the exit wound
— Kat Lehmann, ONE ART Haiku Anthology, 2024

a deep sigh
blows out the votive
late winter rain
— Kristen Lindquist, Akitsu Quarterly, Fall/Winter 2024

summer theater
a trap door opens
under the stars
— Scott Mason, The Heron’s Nest, Volume XXVI, Number 3

— Kati Mohr, Hauling The Tide, HSA Members’ Anthology 2024

his walking stick
when I need
to talk
— Peter Newton, Modern Haiku 55.2

if only men too seahorses
— Debbie Olson, #FemkuMag, Issue 35

hash brownies
somewhere out there
a call’s loon
— Vandana Parashar, Prune Juice Journal, Issue #44

come what may have been autumn twilight
— Christopher Patchel, Upstate Dim Sum 2024/II

…………………………………………sandpiper
— petro c.k,, Porad Haiku Award 2024

autumn skies
another loop released
from the kite reel
— Dru Philippou, Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku Awards 2024

falling leaves
the gentle pulse
of the oxygen tank
— Marilyn Powell, Frogpond 47:3

explaining spring
to my blind sister
lilac breeze
— Meera Rehm, Leaf Journal, Issue 5

knitting off gauge
again begin to
takes it rain what
— Michele Root-Bernstein, Acorn 53

rape in wartime
Granny’s experience
and mine
— Nuri Rosegg, Asahi Haikuist Network, Asahi Shimbun, December 6, 2024

ashen as ash as hen
— Ernesto P. Santiago, dadakuku, October 18, 2024

deep drought
a dab of perfume
on the rainmaker’s wrist
— Kelly Sargent, Frogpond 47:3

winter pine boughs
the weight
of a child’s why
— Kelly Sargent, Leaf Journal, Issue 5

her first period added to the watchlist
— Julie Schwerin, Prune Juice Journal, Issue #42

— Julie Schwerin, Trailblazer Contest 2024

first day of shiva—
the wail of the baby
without her breast
— Sara Tropper, Modern Haiku 55.1

discussing morality
with the dead soldier’s child
rays of the moon
— Sara Tropper, The Pan Haiku Review, Issue 3

chronic illness the rests of my life
— Margaret Walker, Kingfisher #9

for giving and for getting plum stones in the icebox
— Marcie Wessels, Heliosparrow Poetry Journal, January 7, 2024

alone
a meadow
makes me its weed
— Peter Yovu, The Heron’s Nest, Volume XXVI, Number 3