The Haiku of Now Challenge Winners

The haiku often gets treated as an exercise of how much can be said in a small space. How much weight those seventeen syllables can carry.

The Haiku of Now challenge moves in the opposite direction.

It asks for less. Less explanation. Less reaching. Just a moment, as it happens.

These selections stay there. Close to the present, shaped by attention rather than interpretation.

🏆 Winners

Micro Moment by Meredith Harmon

A small, precise moment of looking closely, getting it slightly wrong, and correcting it right away.

Redacted by Sara Wilson

After a brief flicker before everything settles and stays there in a steady hum.

Attachment by Travis Dylan

A waitlist email appears beside a photo of a gravesite, the two moments held side by side.

180 Seconds by Cristal S.

A tense, counted wait moves through the body as two stripes appear, holding the moment in place.

Continuity by Lamar Wiggins

Continuity zooms in on the moment a shell breaks and something pushes through.

🎖️ Runners-up

• writing in the dark by Ashley Lima
• i n t e r l u d e by Kristen Balyeat
• Coffee by Emilie Turner
• Between Keystrokes by Tim Carmichael
• Lighting a Candle by Madison "Maddy" Newton
• Soft Mechanics of Afternoons by Ella Bogdanova
• Untitled Haiku by Bride of Sound
• locking up by Raistlin Allen
• Page Turner by Luna Jordan
• Coffee news by Cadma
• Comforter by Jada Ferguson
• This Moment by Obsidian Words
• Articulatory Phonetics by Harper Lewis
• Pages by Adam Kolozetti
• Sub-Zero Temperatures by Polite Adjacent

🏅 Honorable Mentions

• Preparation by D. J. Reddall
• Refresh by Alicia Melnick
• Ripples On The Lake by Darla M Seely
• After the Children by Rene Volpi
• Winter Resilience by Lana V Lynx
• A Haiku Set in a Cafe by J. Otis Haas
• Ice Storm by Penny Fuller
• Sauna by Tina D. Lopez
• Gold by Rick Henry Christopher
• Paper Wasps by Stacey Mataxis Whitlow (SMW)

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