Shortlist of Poems: Touchstone Awards 2012

We had a terrific response to our call for submissions to the Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems. The Awards recognize excellence and innovation in English-language haiku and senryu published in juried public venues during each calendar year. To all who participated in the 2012 nomination process, both editors and individual poets, thank you.

After much deliberation, the panel has selected the shortlist of poems that will move on to the final round. Many thanks to the distinguished panelists who devoted their time and care over the past few months—560 poems were nominated!

Award-recipients are selected from the following list. Author names are in alphabetical order:

three or four fingers deep red rose

–Melissa Allen, Frogpond 35:3

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they search for my cervix
  orchids on the ceiling

–Helen Buckingham, Modern Haiku 43.2

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weeds gone to seed

I lie again

to my mother

–Aubrie Cox, Mayfly 52

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mating dragonflies—

my overuse

of dashes

–Aubrie Cox, Frogpond 35:1

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winding road

for the next eight miles

Coltrane

–Cherie Hunter Day, Modern Haiku 43.1

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egg white

slipping through my fingers

winter sunrise

–Bill Deegan, Frogpond 35:3

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clam dig

the quiet passing

of a sail

–Garry Eaton, The Heron’s Nest, Volume 14

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deeper and deeper into the foxglove dusk

–Lorin Ford, Brunswick, The Heron’s Nest, Volume 14

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“something”

on my mammogram

starless night

–Carolyn Hall, The Heron’s Nest, Volume 14

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autumn colors

the scent

of a match being lit

–Michele L. Harvey, The Heron’s Nest, Volume 14

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autumn days    drifting from text to marginalia

–Mark Holloway, Bones no. 1

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on his way

to the hospital

a dark spot on the moon

–Gregory Hopkins, Mayfly 52

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tree stump

my father tells me how

to raise a son

–Gregory Hopkins, A Hundred Gourds 1:3

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first date

the way she pronounces

Van Gogh

–Bill Kenney, Modern Haiku 43.2

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summer heat

the strands of hair not captured

by her braid

–Michael Ketchek, Frogpond 35:2

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discarded monuments     the afterlife of shadows

–Anatoly Kudryavitsky, A Hundred Gourds 1:2

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Sprinkling            salt            a rain

glistens                 an ease of light

particles               it is

–Rebecca Lilly, Roadrunner 12.2

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hesitating until I’m a hummingbird

–Eve Luckring, The Heron’s Nest, Volume 14

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shelter in a lit match

–Eve Luckring, Modern Haiku 43.3

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she stops me

from picking a lemon

—it’s asleep, she says

–pjm, The Heron’s Nest, Volume 14

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planetarium

my child’s grip

starts to loosen

–John McManus, The Heron’s Nest, Volume 14

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the homeless gentleman

a little soft-shoe

in his stride

–Peter Newton, A Hundred Gourds 1:4

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winter night

reaching a page

someone has folded

–Kieran O’Connor, The Heron’s Nest, Volume 14

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all the changes

while we prayed

snow covers the lot

–Dan Schwerin, Modern Haiku 43.1

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her

being

dead

goes

on

–John Stevenson, Acorn 29

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family dinner

siblings feed the elephant

in the room

–Julie Warther, Frogpond 35:1

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