The Haiku Foundation Announces Its Touchstone Individual Poems Short List for 2020

The Haiku Foundation is pleased to announce The Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems 2020 Short 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.

In this second round the panel selected their top choices from the Long List. In the final round the panel will select the haiku from the Short List that will be recognized as the Awarded haiku for 2020.

Many thanks to our distinguished panelists: Chuck Brickley, Anna Maris, Pravat Kumar Padhy, Christopher Patchel, Michelle Tennison, and Angela Terry.
The Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems final results will be announced on April 17, as part of the Haiku Foundation’s celebration of International Haiku Poetry Day.

Bruce H. Feingold
Chair, Touchstone Awards

through the cracked window
                      a chirp
                                of sunlight
Kelly Sauvage Angel, Wales Haiku Journal (Summer 2020)
within the song
of a winter wren
another begins
Joanna Ashwell, Shamrock 43
viewing the tree
three generations
of crossed arms
Roberta Beary, Modern Haiku 51.1
co-
v.
id
Helen Buckingham, Bones 20
midnight blue 
a grandma-shaped crater 
on the moon 
Hemapriya Chellappan, Blo͞o Outlier Journal 1 
returning time a poppy seed drops the sun
Beate Conrad, Sonic Boom 18
  in the space
our light makes
     moths
Gary Hotham, Gratitude in the Time of Covid-19: The Haiku Hecameron
washing our hands— 
each soap bubble holds

all the colors       
Christine Horner, GEPPO XLV:3
moving van . . .       
everything but the growth marks
on the closet door
Elinor Pihl Huggett, GEPPO XLV:3
steady rain
might as well
keep walking
Bill Kenney, The Heron’s Nest XXII.1
fall starts measuring time in butterflies
Craig Kittner, Bones 21
what remains
after the river is gone
this empty bed
Kat Lehmann, Mayfly 68
long before language the S of the river 
Annette Makino, Francine Porad Haiku Award, 2020, First Place
switching to
    a lower case i
autumn stars
Matthew Markworth, Modern Haiku 51.3
	
pre-dawn stars
the rattle of glass bottles 
from a passing milk truck 
John McManus, hedgerow 132
bloodwood moon
a starving dingo paces
the rain shadow
Ron C. Moss, Failed Haiku 49
dusk between the fragments of a prehistoric bird I recognize my mother’s beak
Reka Nyitrai, NOON: journal of the short poem 16
her eulogy—
the sound of the ocean
in a small shell
Carol Ann Palomba, Mayfly 68

an orchid

trapped in a paperweight 
child bride
Vandana Parasha, The Heron’s Nest XX11.4
horse pasture
the prairie wind moves
with muscle
Chad Lee Robinson, The Heron’s Nest 22:4
adult coloring book 
I still can’t stay
within the lines
Adelaide B. Shaw, Failed Haiku 51
in the space
left by twilight
crickets
Ann Schwader, tiny words (8/13/2020)
before we were human the sparrow’s call
Tiffany Shaw-Diaz, Heliosparrow Poetry Journal (10 Jan 2020)
pasture fence
where the paint ran out
a bluebird’s song
Rick Tarquinio, The Heron’s Nest 22:1
our car never nearer the shimmer of black water on the desert road 
Richard Tice, The haiku pea podcast Series 3, Episode 24, 2020
blackbird singing light into the womb
Stephen Toft, is/let (2020)
what pines!
what lady's slippers!
when i take tomorrow's walk
Vincent Tripi, Modern Haiku 51.3
rain-soaked earth
a robin tugs one end
of the universe
Julie Warther, Frogpond 43:3
moss-grown stone 
a daughter’s age 
in days
Mike White, Frogpond 43.3