2025 Touchstone Awards for Individual Haibun – Short List
The Haiku Foundation is pleased to announce the Short List for the 2025 Touchstone Awards for Individual Haibun. These Awards recognize excellence and innovation in English-language haibun published in juried public venues during each calendar year. Our Short List for 2025 comprises nine haibun.
In this second round, the panel selected their top choices from the Long List. In the final round, the panel will select the haibun from the Short List that will be recognised as the Awarded haibun for 2025.
Many thanks to our distinguished panelists, Lorraine A. Padden, Billie Dee, and Richard L. Matta. Final results for the Touchstone Awards for Individual Haibun will be announced on April 17, as part of The Haiku Foundation’s celebration of International Haiku Poetry Day.
Vandana Parashar
Coordinator, Touchstone Awards for Individual Haibun
Below is the shortlist, followed by the shortlisted haibun.
SHORTLIST
How to Enter the Confessional
—- Cherie Hunter Day, Modern Haiku 56.2, Summer 2025
Visitation
— Kristen Lindquist, Honourable Mention, HPNC Haibun Contest 2025
Southern Comfort
— Peg Cherrin-Myers, contemporary haibun online, 21:3, November 30, 2025
Lucky
— John Barlow, First Place, Haiku Society of America Haibun Awards 2025
Dandelion Wishes
— Rich Youmans, Frogpond Vol. 48.3, 2025
The Far Shore
—- Sandip Chauhan, haikuKATHA, Issue 43, May 2025
Checkout Girl
— Farah Ali, Modern Haiku, Vol. 56.3, Autumn 2025
Hungry Little Girl
— Peg Cherrin-Myers, whiptail: journal of the single-line poem, Issue 13 June 2025
An Interview for Floor Manager at the Haiku Factory
— Kat Lehmann, MacQueen’s Quinterly Issue 30 Sept 2025
How to Enter the Confessional
Any wooden closet will suffice. House in a church hallway or a tree’s hollow. I remember one large pine gutted by lightning with enough room for two to crouch within the survivor’s scar. Finding a listening heart shouldn’t be too hard.
opening this chapter of thought white lilies
Nuthatches make good confidants. They look the part: tidy gray and black vestments with sharp white markings. They move with confidence and are diligent. A quick probe of a crevice yields results. Clean for now.
dispensing absolution redwood grove
— Cherie Hunter Day, Modern Haiku 56.2, Summer 2025
Visitation
Acadia National Park, May, before the real crowds arrive. Blackbirds teed up on last year’s cattails. Skunk cabbage leaves unfurling, ferns, purple blooms of rhodora humming with bees. On a trail to the sea, pitch pines forest ruddy bedrock scraped bare by the last glacier. Resinous scent of bark, of needles underfoot.
sunlight singing in the boughs a pine warbler
Moving closer, the cacophony of a flock of crossbills shifting among the trees, prying apart last year’s cones. Here and there a fallen cone waits for summer’s heat to crack it open as effectively as any beak, unloose its tiny seeds.
sun-warmed granite slowly opening a spring azure
— Kristen Lindquist, HPNC Haibun Contest 2025 (Honorable Mention)
Southern Comfort
wind chimes the absence of yesterday’s flutters
I’m ankle deep, wearing nothing
but a robe, house shoes, and
a headlamp while exhuming
graves directly below my family
tree. A row of headstones, my one
and done’s.
I dig each one up, sever
their pulsating roots with the blade
of my shovel, carry each baby
in their whiskey-soaked blankets and
gently lay them on the kitchen table
where my son’s bris took place
years before.
Shaking off the moist dirt and unrolling
their 8.5 x 11 bodies, I stack one hand
on top of another, lace my fingers,
and begin chest compressions
on stanzas two and three, give
mouth-to-mouth to their bolded titles
and memorize every line, reciting
them morning, noon, and night
like prayer.
I swaddle my newborns in clean
blankets, place each one into Moses
baskets, release them down the rivers
of submissions and only after they’ve
been taken, can I let go.
born again sober feeling a little life in me
— Peg Cherrin-Myers, contemporary haibun online, 21:3, November 30, 2025
Lucky
Lucky wants to do it. Birdy does too. We’re in the boys’ bogs, Lucky swinging from the frame of the cubicle door. The priest’s just asked if we’d like to be altar servers, and Sir made out it was an honour, an expectation even, like a rite of passage. Birdy’s by the pissers, his shirt still sticking through his open fly. I’m by the sink, just far enough away not to get my face shoved into the manky tap. The water is warm and tastes disgusting. The sense of guilt weighs heavily, but I tell Lucky and Birdy that I’m gonna say no.
the heat of 45 summers what we know now
— John Barlow, First Place, Haiku Society of America Haibun Awards 2025
Dandelion Wishes
Early Stages: The Visit
She told me to have another and held out the box of chocolates, the name of each on the raised lid. It had started to rain again, softly, the high windows becoming teary and the room taking on a ghostly pale. I picked one and she smiled. “Mom liked pralines too,” she said, her voice bright. “They were one of her favorites. Remember how, every anniversary, Dad came home from work with a box of pralines and a single rose, and Mom kept the petals as they faded and fell.” “Just like Mom,” I said, and we stayed quiet for a bit. She then smiled and talked about my nephew, Danny, her only child, who was studying to be an architect. She brought up the old neighborhood, each rowhouse identical as if it were a clone, and how we’d ride our blue bikes around the block and not ever tire. “Mom would wave from the front porch every time we sped past,” she said. “Imagine, sixty years ago,” her voice as soft as the rain before turning bright again. “Remember when I was nine and sick in bed with jaundice—my eyes had turned yellow. You brought me a fuzzy dandelion from our lawn and told me to make a wish… I remember so clearly, it was the middle of May—May 16.” I laughed. “I wish I had your mind for dates.” “I wish I still had the dandelion,” she said, looking at me with that face she sometimes got. Just as I was about to ask when Mom died, the nursing home attendant appeared and said visiting hours were ending.
Middle Stages: The Fading
She told me to have another and held out the box of chocolates, the name of each on the raised lid. It had started to rain again, softly, the high windows becoming teary and the room taking on a ghostly pale. I picked one and she smiled. “Mom liked pralines too,” she said, her voice bright. “They were one of her favorites. Remember how, every anniversary, Dad came home from work with a box of pralines and a single rose, and Mom kept the petals as they faded and fell.” “Just like Mom,” I said, and we stayed quiet for a bit. She then smiled and talked about my nephew, Danny, her only child, who was studying to be an architect. She brought up the old neighborhood, each rowhouse identical as if it were a clone, and how we’d ride our blue bikes around the block and not ever tire. “Mom would wave from the front porch every time we sped past,” she said. “Imagine, sixty years ago,” her voice as soft as the rain before turning bright again. “Remember when I was nine and sick in bed with jaundice—my eyes had turned yellow. You brought me a fuzzy dandelion from our lawn and told me to make a wish… I remember so clearly, it was the middle of May—May 16.” I laughed. “I wish I had your mind for dates.” “I wish I still had the dandelion,” she said, looking at me with that face she sometimes got. Just as I was about to ask when Mom died, the nursing home attendant appeared and said visiting hours were ending.
Late Stages: And Yet
She told me to have another and held out the box of chocolates, the name of each on the raised lid. It had started to rain again, softly, the high windows becoming teary and the room taking on a ghostly pale. I picked one and she smiled. “Mom liked pralines too,” she said, her voice bright. “They were one of her favorites. Remember how, every anniversary, Dad came home from work with a box of pralines and a single rose, and Mom kept the petals as they faded and fell.” “Just like Mom,” I said, and we stayed quiet for a bit. She then smiled and talked about my nephew, Danny, her only child, who was studying to be an architect. She brought up the old neighborhood, each rowhouse identical as if it were a clone, and how we’d ride our blue bikes around the block and not ever tire. “Mom would wave from the front porch every time we sped past,” she said. “Imagine, sixty years ago,” her voice as soft as the rain before turning bright again. “Remember when I was nine and sick in bed with jaundice—my eyes had turned yellow. You brought me a fuzzy dandelion from our lawn and told me to make a wish… I remember so clearly, it was the middle of May—May 16.” I laughed. “I wish I had your mind for dates.” “I wish I still had the dandelion,” she said, looking at me with that face she sometimes got. Just as I was about to ask when Mom died, the nursing home attendant appeared and said visiting hours were ending.
—- Rich Youmans, Frogpond Vol. 48.3, 2025
The Far Shore
It began with small things — a misplaced word, forgotten keys, a pause before my name. You laughed it off — tiredness, nothing more. But the forgetting deepened, carving through you like water through stone.
By autumn, you were a river thinning at the edges. Hindi and Punjabi unravelled into each other, words folding over words. You forgot your grandchildren’s names but spoke of a childhood courtyard, of kites rising hard against the monsoon wind. Some days, you mistook me for your sister. Other days, you smiled at the empty chair beside you, speaking to your mother as if she had never left.
low tide
the imprint of egrets
filling with water
At the nursing home, we sat near the window, where you pressed your palms against the glass, watching the world move beyond you. We brought your favorite dishes — lentil soup with cumin, warm rice pudding with saffron — but you only took a spoonful, tasting without swallowing, as if memory itself had become unfamiliar on your tongue. The broth cooled, rice congealing at the edges of the bowl. I held your hand, tracing the veins beneath your skin — blue, fragile, receding.
The last time I visited, I brought along the scarf you had left behind on your bed — burgundy with golden thread — and wrapped it around your shoulders. For a moment, it felt like tucking a child into bed.
wind through cedars
a falcon vanishes
into the white sky
—- Sandip Chauhan, haikuKATHA, Issue 43, May 2025
Checkout Girl
neon enhances merchandise turns sallow skin
sallower dark circles cheap concealer layers acne
ugly blouse shiver fridges too close. shift starts hi
scan beep boyfriend beep exams beep clothes beep
broke beep pinch belly fat beep check collarbone
beep don’t beep think beep don’t think about beep
things you don’t beep want to think about beep here’s
your change. lonely men talk beep pretend beep to care
beep what does your name mean beep Joy beep pretty
like your eyes Joy beep smile beep cash card receipt
happy-rest-of-the-night watch darkness swallow them
whole. trolley squeal basket stack precarious clatter
splash rain drip overcharged who moved cereal. glass
bottle reflection window blank faces conveyor belt
jerks hi scan beep yawn beep notice everything beep
vegan-vegetarian-halal-lapsed beep comfort eats beep
new diet beep migraine beep addiction beep allergies
beep paranoid beep postpartum beep trying to conceive
beep light-medium-heavy beep angry beep sad beep
rich beep married beep breadline beep would take you
anywhere beep if you touched their hand and asked.
bags coupons baskets crash smirk told you so shelf
stacker tidies numb feet ache homeless bellows huddle
shrink shudder not paid enough to deal with this shit.
restless knuckle temples gnaw teeth scrape glitter nails
first last endless hour. get coat up down aisle marbled
plastic flesh red pink white mince steak thigh breast
liver scales gills reek gag outside stumble sewers bare
concrete trees sirens distant breathe pray ignore grubby
silver coin moon.
solar plexus unknotting the milky way
—- Farah Ali, Modern Haiku, Vol. 56.3, Autumn 2025
hungry little girl
after putting in s
my contacts, t
i feel i
the weight l
of a soft l
wetness under my right eye
and imagine s
an upside-down k
hot air balloon e
teardrop-sized, l
hanging on e
in the dark t
sunken bed a
of my eye. l
i apply retinol cream
to pointy cheeks, b
chin, forehead, o
and bend d
at the waist y
with my head still up
not looking c
down, balancing h
the tear e
while lathering c
cherry blossom k
lotion into atrophied i
calves and thighs. n
i’ve never g
held a tear this long,
how proud l
my father o
would be, v
how he’d like e
me now, becoming
the son i
he didn’t know n
he already had. i didn’t let
the tear spill, t
didn’t let it win, h
only to look e
at myself realizing
this tear, m
a fallen lens, i
dry and wrinkly, r
sitting upright r
full o
of emptiness. r
— Peg Cherrin-Myers, whiptail: journal of the single-line poem, Issue 13 June 2025
An Interview for Floor Manager at the Haiku Factory
Tell me a little about yourself.
common blue damselfly
my name lost
to the river
Why did you leave your last position?
morning fog
the bumblebees and I
lost among lillies
Why do you want this job?
mountaineering
a polite decline
of the peak
Where do you see yourself in five years?
at the edge
of an autumn wind
ripe strawberry
How would you define your greatest strength?
morning meadow
the scent of chartreuse
collects a cloud
How would you define your greatest weakness?
morning meadow
the scent of chartreuse
collects a cloud
How does this position fit with your career goals?
nightfall
the crows assemble
a larger dark
What would you say is your core expertise?
river walk
the endless rushing
kaleidoscope
Describe a time you applied your skills a different way.
midnight working through the silence owls
Tell me about your last three jobs.
skunk cabbage dawn
still making sense
of the nonsense
Describe a failure and what you learned from it.
dark forest
warbles and croaks sketch
the shape of it
What are your salary expectations?
holstein dream
the arc of a day
outlines my back
Please provide a list of references.
inviting shapes …
the constellations
that might exist
How can we reach you?
green lake
a passing trout
borrows my name
We will get back to you with any next steps.
beach walk
my footsteps fade
into fossils
— Kat Lehmann, MacQueen’s Quinterly Issue 30 Sept 2025
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