A seven-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Jennifer Hambrick has received numerous awards and other honors for her free verse poetry, Japanese short-form poetry, haiga, and literary criticism. She has been featured by former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser in American Life in Poetry, on Rattle poetry journal’s Rattlecast livestream, and elsewhere, and her work been published in Rattle, The Columbia Review, The American Journal of Poetry, The Santa Clara Review, San Pedro River Review, Maryland Literary Review, The Main Street Rag, POEM, Chiron Review, Ekphrastic Review, JuxtaProse Literary Magazine, The New Verse News, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, Mayfly, A New Resonance: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, vol. 13, ed. Jim Kacian (Red Moon Press, 2023); Acorn, Cattails, World Haiku Review, Presence, tinywords, Bones, is/let, Blithe Spirit, ephemerae, Hedgerow, Wales Haiku Review, Heliosparrow Poetry Journal, Contemporary Haibun Online, The Haibun Journal, Chrysanthemum, Kingfisher, Wild Plum, Haiku Canada Review, Ershik, Under the Basho, The Mainichi, The Asahi Shimbun, Under the Bashō, Prune Juice, Failed Haiku, Ribbons, Eucalypt, HaigaOnline, Daily Haiga, and in dozens of other publications around the world. Hambrick’s critical essay/interview (with Dr. Richard Gilbert) “Found in Translation: The Kon Nichi Translation Group, Gendai Haiku, and the Rise of Avant-Garde Haiku in English” is published in Juxtapositions , the journal of haiku research and scholarship published by The Haiku Foundation. Hambrick served as Program Chair for the 2023 Haiku North America conference (Cincinnati, OH), where she created the world’s first haibun film festival, and has adjudicated the 2025 Heliosparrow Haiku Frontier Awards competition (haibun category), 2024 Betty Drevniok Haiku Award Competition, the 2024 (inaugural) Heliosparrow Haiku Frontier Awards Competition (haibun, sequences, and alterku categories), the 2023 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational, the Haiku North America 2023 International Haibun Film Festival, the 2022 San Francisco International Haibun Competition, and the 2021 Haiku Society of America Haibun Award Contest. By invitation, Jennifer Hambrick served as a guest editor for The Haiku Foundation’s Per Diem web feature (April 2018), and many of her own haiku have been featured in Per Diem. Jennifer Hambrick is a classical musician and public radio broadcaster, cultural journalist, and multimedia producer. Jennifer Hambrick .
Awards and Other Honors:
For Literary Criticism: Winner of the JUXTA Award for Excellence in Haiku Research and Scholarship (the "Best of Issue" award), Juxtapositions: Research and Scholarship in Haiku, Issue 10 (2024), for the essay/interview “Found in Translation: The Kon Nichi Translation Group, Gendai Haiku, and the Rise of Avant-Garde Haiku in English” For Poetry: Winner of a 2025 Merit Book Award from the Haiku Society of America for the collection of haiku and short prose poems a silence or two; Winner of the Stevens Manuscript Award of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies for the free verse poetry collection In the High Weeds; Winner of the 2022 Marianne Bluger Book Award from Haiku Canada for the haibun collection Joyride; Winner of the Sheila-Na-Gig Press Poetry Prize (2020); Pushcart Prize nominations (2024, 2022, [x2], 2021 [x2], 2020, 2014); Best of the Net nomination (2021); Appointed first Artist-in-Residence at historic Bryn Du Mansion, Granville, Ohio, (2019); Four First Place honors and a Special Award for Forensic Metalinguistics (haiku category), inaugural Heliosparrow Haiku Frontier Awards, 2024; First Place, Martin Lucas Haiku Award Competition (2021); First Place, Haiku Society of America Haibun Award Competition (2018); Third Place, Irish Haiku Society Haiku Competition (2021); Bronze Prize, Ito En Art of Haiku Grand-Prix (2021); Honorable Mention, Haiku Society of America Haibun Award Competition (2020); Honorable Mention, Genjuan International Haibun Competition (2020); Highly Commended, H. Gene Murtha Senryu Contest (2021); Honorable Mention (x3) in the inaugural,, Heliosparrow Haiku Frontier Awards, 2024; Honorable Mention, Betty Drevniok Haiku Award Contest (2022); Honorable Mention, H. Gene Murtha Senryu Contest (2018); poems selected for publication in A New Resonance: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, vol. 13, ed. Jim Kacian (Red Moon Press, 2023); Haiku 21.2, ed. Lee Gurga and Scott Metz (Modern Haiku Press, forthcoming); Haiku 2023: 100 Notable Ku from 2022, ed. Lee Gurga & Scott Metz (2022); Haiku 2022: 100 Notable Ku from 2021, ed. Lee Gurga & Scott Metz (2022); Haiku 2021: 100 Notable Ku from 2020, ed. Lee Gurga & Scott Metz (2021); Haiku 2020: 100 Notable Ku from 2019, ed. Lee Gurga & Scott Metz (2020); The Red Moon Anthology of Contemporary Haibun, Vol. 17, ed. Rich Youmans et al. (2022); The Red Moon Anthology of Contemporary Haibun, Vol. 16, ed. Rich Youmans (2021); telling the bees: The 2024 Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, ed. Jim Kacian 2025 (2025); string theory: The 2021 Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, ed. Jim Kacian (2022); jar of rain: The 2020 Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, ed. Jim Kacian (2021); a hole in the light: The 2018 Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, ed. Jim Kacian (2019); Honorable Mention, Jane Reichhold Memorial Haiga Contest (2017); Runner-up, Readers' Choice Award for Best Haiku published in Shamrock, the Journal of the Irish Haiku Society (2017); U.S. Sakura Award, Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational (2017); Winning Haiku, Golden Haiku Competition (2017); Honorable Mention, Kaji Aso Studio International Haiku Competition (2017); Merit Award, Montenegrin International Haiku Competition in English (2017); Haiku Master of the Week, NHK World TV's Haiku Masters series (8 Aug. 2017); Runner-up for Haiku Master of the Week, NHK World TV's Haiku Masters series, (12 Dec. 2017); haiga accepted in the World Haiku Association Haiga Contests (2017); The Mainichi’s Haiku in English: Best of 2017 anthology; Placewinner - vanguard haiku category, World Haiku Review (spring/summer issue, 2016); commissioned to serve as Poet Laureate of the Worthington Chamber Orchestra's 2025-26 concert season, "American Crossroads," celebrating the America 250 anniversary; served as Poet Laureate and commissioned to write and perform seven free verse poems for the 2022-23 season of the world-class Chamber Music Columbus concert series, Columbus, Ohio; recipient of a commission from the Johnstone Fund for New Music's poetry and music commissioning project The Big SCORE (2018); recipient of a commission from the VIVO Music Festival to write an original free verse poem in response to Arnold Schoenberg's pivotal chamber music work Verklärte Nacht (2017); Ohioana Book Award nominations for In the High Weeds (2021) and debut poetry chapbook, Unscathed (2013); Winner of the Ohio Poetry Association's Ides of March Competition (2013); Second Place, William Redding Memorial Competition of The Poetry Forum, Columbus, Ohio (2011).
Books Published:
a silence or two (Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2024), winner of a 2025 Merit Book Award from the Haiku Society of America and shortlisted for the Touchstone Distinguished Books Award from The Haiku Foundation; Joyride (Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2021), winner of the Marianne Bluger Book Award from Haiku Canada and shortlisted for The Touchstone Distinguished Books Award from The Haiku Foundation; In the High Weeds (National Federation of State Poetry Societies Press, 2021), winner of the Stevens Manuscript Award; Unscathed (Cleveland, OH: NightBallet Press, 2013).
Selected Work
whale fall
my ocean’s quiet
deaths
frost field
a quiet walk through
the Milky Way
starry night
acorns popping
underfoot
ossuary dawn
a blood sky turns
to dust
not as long
as it used to be
summer day
Credits: “whale fall” – First Place, Heliosparrow Haiku Frontier Awards (2024); first published in Heliosparrow Poetry Journal (26 May 2023); “frost field” – First Place, Martin Lucas Haiku Award Competition (2021); first published in Presence #72 (March 2022); “starry night” – Featured with commentary by Ted Kooser in American Life in Poetry (Dec. 2020); first published in Modern Haiku 51.2 (Summer 2020).; “ossuary dawn” – First Place and Special Award for Forensic Metalinguistics, Heliosparrow Haiku Frontier Awards (2024); first published in Heliosparrow Poetry Journal (28 Feb. 2024); not as long” – Shortlisted for the Touchstone Award for Individual Poems (2021); first published in Wales Haiku Journal, Autumn 2021.)
