2025 Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems — Awarded
The Haiku Foundation is pleased to announce The Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems for haiku and senryu published in 2025. Just over 1,500 poems were nominated by poets, readers, contest administrators, and editors around the world. After much deliberation, the five panelists narrowed the field to a Long List of 47 poems, then a Short List of 23. Our third and final round recognizes five poems with the highest honor of Awarded.
The Awarded poems represent the panel’s assessment of the best of what English-language haiku and senryu have to offer. We extend our gratitude to everyone that nominated poems last year, and to the hard-working panelists — Thomas Haynes, Annette Makino, Sarah Paris, Dan Schwerin, and Mary Stevens — for their diligence, expertise, and effort.
The panelists’ commentaries on these Awarded poems will be shared in the near future, along with those of the Awarded Individual Haibun and Books.
Please join us in congratulating the winning poets!
Matthew Markworth
Coordinator, Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems
secrets she did not mean to keep the war
— Claire Vogel Camargo, whiptail: journal of the single-line poem, Issue 13, June 2025.
an old olive tree
listed
among the dead
— Adele Evershed, Frogpond, Volume 48:2, Spring/Summer 2025.
dusk
fine tuning the dark
around a cello
— Jonathan Humphrey, NOON: Journal of the Short Poem, Issue 27, April 2025.
big
enough
prayer rug
— Peter Newton, Modern Haiku, Volume 56.3, Autumn 2025.
summer solstice
every day a little more
daughter than son
— Marjolein Rotsteeg, The Mainichi, August 21, 2025.
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Congratulations poets — and judges!
Congratulations to the poets, and the judges for this fine selection. I love the all. Besides being excellent poems, they seemed to reberate off each other as I reread them this morning.
Many congratulations to the winning poets.
Wow! Amazing winning poems. Big congrats to the poets and thanks to the organizers and judges!
Heartfelt 💜 congratulations 🎉 to all five winning poets!
Sending a big shout out to Peter Newton for his MH win.
Having served in the past on this Awards panel for 3 years, I know how much time & effort is involved. Kudos 🎊 to panelists Thomas Haynes, Annette Makino, Sarah Paris, Dan Schwerin, and Mary Stevens, and to Matthew Markworth, Coordinator, Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems.
Thank you, Roberta, for your nice words!
Claire
Congratulations all – A marvelous long, short, and winning list!
Thank you, Lorraine! Yes, congrats to all!
Claire
Congratations to all, and a big shout out to Adele for this tremendous honor!
Thank you Eavonka-I really appreciate your support. Many thanks to the judges, Frogpond editors, especially Allyson Whipple, and congratulations to all my fellow poets.
Congratulations, dear poets!
Great selection. Congratulations to poets.
Congratulations to all!
Congratulations Claire and all – A really strong group of winners.
Thank you, Sara! Appreciate.
Congratulations to all
Congratulations Claire!! and congratulations to the others as well.
Thank you much, Ed, for your kind words!
Congrats to all & thanks to our judges!
congratulations everyone! These are excellent!
Congratulations to all the winners! A special congratulations to Claire for representing whiptail with an excellent one-liner! We’re also proud of Rich and Nitu for making the shortlist with their whiptail poems. Great work, everyone!
Thank you so much, Kat, for giving me the chance! So appreciate whiptail, you and Robin. Congrats to all!
Congratulations everyone!
Congratulations to all the poets!!!
secrets she did not mean to keep the war
— Claire Vogel Camargo, whiptail: journal of the single-line poem, Issue 13, June 2025.
My favourite from the very beginning! Simple yet so deep and poignant!!
I love Claire’s poem too. It reminds me of my grandmother.
Oh, thank you so much for sharing that about your gran, Julie. I am glad it resonated. And for your nice words. Hugs
Warm thanks, Lakshmi, for your meaningful words! For touching my heart.
Congratulations to all.
The brilliant five. Very well constructed poems. My warmest congratulations to all.
Congratulations to you all. Some fine work here.
Big congrats to Claire and all the other winning authors!
Big thank you, Alan, for your kind words and encouragement!
Hearty congratulations to all! Well deserved!
Congratulations!