Poet Profile

Lorraine A Padden

Lorraine A Padden is a Touchstone award-winning poet and former professional dancer whose extensive work in the performing and visual arts have earned her several national awards, including an appointment to the National Endowment for the Arts. Her prize-winning haiku and short form poetry regularly appear in journals and anthologies, and her first collection titled Upwelling, was shortlisted for a Touchstone Distinguished Book Award in 2023.

Awards and Other Honors:

Touchstone Award for Individual Poem – 2023; First prize – Tricycle Magazine Best of the Haiku Challenge, February, 2021; Third Place – Haiku Award in honor of Harold G. Henderson, Haiku Society of America, 2022; Fifth Place - New Zealand Poetry Society / Heliosparrow Journal Semagrams Contest (with Alan Peat), 2022; Honorable Mention – Senryu Award in memorial of Gerald Brady, Haiku Society of America, 2022; Honorable Mention - International Modern Kigo Competition, 2022; Honorable Mention and Pinesong Award, North Carolina Poetry Society Bloodroot Haiku Competition, 2022; Honorable Mention - Rengay Award in Honor of Garry Gay (with Carol Judkins), Haiku Society of America, 2021; Honorable Mention – Tokutomi International Haiku Competition, 2020, 2023.

Books Published:

Upwelling - Red Moon Press, Sept. 2022.

seventh summer
we measure his height
in sunflowers

floating lantern
the sleeve of her kimono
touches the water

ylang-ylang petals
the hers and hers
wedding bed

he fends off her questions
she fends off his hands

high tide
the pile of words
outside a poem

Autumn afternoon
the long scrolling
to find my birth year

Credits:

“seventh summer” - tinywords Issue 21.2, Sept. 28, 2021; “floating lantern” - Haikuniverse Oct. 19, 2021; “ylang-ylang petals” - Modern Haiku Vol. 52.3, Autumn 2021; “he fends off”- Frogpond Vol. 44:2, Spring-Summer 2021; “high tide” - Presence Issue 68, Nov. 2020; “Autumn afternoon” - The Heron's Nest Vol. XXIII No. 2, June 2021.