Poetry Contest: Your Top Humanist Haikus

TheHumanist.com is pleased to announce the winners of our first-ever humanist haiku contest!

Two weeks ago we asked readers to express their thoughts on current global calamities and triumphs through an evocative poem. Submissions were required to be in the form of a haiku, a seemingly simple form of poetry in three lines: five syllables on line one, seven syllables on line two, and five syllables on line three.

We received 162 entries, and our judges have chosen nine of their favorites (in random order) below. Many thanks to all of our poets, and to our panel of judges: Innanoshe R. Akuson, Jennifer Bardi, Peter Bjork, Nicole Carr, Anna Clay, and Meredith Thompson.


Laughter of children
unsilenced by old dogma
is the song of life

By Rick L Scifres

 

Virtual bridges
Span the viral flood of change;
And hope unites us.

By Hank Rodgers

 

Black and brown bodies
Feared targets of blue whiteys
Shot red quite calmly.

By Angela Ware

 

click the next headline
my breath catches, my arms flail
drowning in the news

By Peter James Smith

 

In five and seven,
you state the obvious. Then
about here, you don’t.

By Peter Huff

 

As gravediggers turn
the earth forks into two days,
Yesterday and now.

By Kelly Branagan

 

Her scarlet skies froth
Plump raindrops in cavalcade
Twilight braves its end

By Pamela Cole

 

Microscopic Bug
Megalomaniac man
Deaths accrue daily

By Rob Britt

 

i’ll just dance alone
in my room, volume so loud
end of the world sounds

By Kay Champ