Haiku Northwest
Check our schedule of upcoming activities, including monthly, quarterly, and special events, plus other haiku-related events in our larger community.
Francine Porad published Brussels Sprout from 1988 to 1995. Read about all 23 issues, plus supplementary material, including five favorite poems selected from each issue by Haiku Northwest members, all Editors’ Choice Awards, and more. You can also view PDF scans of each complete issue.
Read about our 35th anniversary anthology, featuring 202 haiku and senryu by 79 contributors, including a memorial section featuring 11 deceased members. Introduction by Michael Dylan Welch, with an essay on Francine Porad, Haiku Northwest’s founder, by Connie Hutchison. Sheila Sondik provides artwork.
In 2024 we celebrate this award’s 21st anniversary. Our 2024 judge is Alan S. Bridges. See the submission guidelines. Read results and commentary from all contests since 2004, including 2024 results (with video). Congratulations to the 2024 winners.
See also PDFs of all Porad Award Flyers
(from 2010 to the present).
Haiku Northwest’s annual haiku retreat every autumn is the highlight of our year. Our seventeenth annual retreat is scheduled for October 24–27, 2024. Our weekend theme is “maps,” with Crystal Simone Smith from Durham, North Carolina as our special guest. See the overview page, information page, schedule, and registration page.
Save the date: Kristen Lindquist will be our guest at our next retreat, October 23–26, 2025.
Read selected poems by our members, with short biographies. Includes a memorial section honoring members who have passed away.
Now in our 37th year
Read about our recent and older meetings, often with Zoom images.
Lean about and connect with our Haiku Northwest officers.
No Longer Strangers, 25th Anniversary Anthology
Learn more about the book, read sample poems, and more.
Learn more about past Haiku Northwest events by year from 2009 to the present.
Check out these additional pages with further information.
Learn about nearby haiku organizations.
Explore useful haiku links.
Haiku Northwest Code of Conduct
Join us in maintaining a safe environment at all our activities.
Welcome to Haiku Northwest
Haiku Northwest was founded in 1988 by Francine Porad. Our friendly group loves to share and discuss haiku and related poetry, including senryu, haibun, haiga, tanka, and linked forms such as renku and rengay. We hold monthly meetings in the Seattle area on the second Thursday evening of most months, plus quarterly weekend meetings, typically host an annual meeting in late spring, and gather for our annual Seabeck Haiku Getaway in October. We also publish occasional member anthologies, sponsor the annual Porad Haiku Award, and more. And we would love to have you join us, especially if you’re new to haiku! To get involved, check out our Events page. Please also join our Mailchimp email list (about two or three messages per month, including meeting announcements). If you have questions, please email haikunw1988@gmail.com.
“In our poems and discussions, the group tries to get beyond the cloud of surface facts, to see the deep stillness within the everyday.”
—Anne Voegtlen
Our Mission
Haiku Northwest educates and enriches the public by celebrating and sharing the art of haiku poetry of the Pacific Northwest.
Email List
Haiku Northwest has a private Mailchimp email list, which we encourage you to join to receive our monthly email newsletter and other announcements. We welcome your participation and input, and invite you to get involved. If you have questions, please contact haikunw1988@gmail.com.
Donations
Please visit our donations page if you would like to make a donation in any amount. Your donations are tax-deductible, since we have 501(c)3 nonprofit status. Thank you for your generosity.
About Haiku Northwest, Founded in 1988
Haiku Northwest is an enthusiastic and friendly group of poets from the greater Puget Sound area of Washington state, meeting monthly usually in Bellevue (just east of Seattle). We are dedicated to writing, studying, and appreciating haiku and related genres of poetry written in English. Our members include both new and established haiku writers, many of whom have had their work published in journals and anthologies throughout the world. We also welcome beginners. The group won the first place Merit Book Award from the Haiku Society of America for its anthology, To Find the Words, published in 2000, the Merit Book Award for best anthology for Seeing Stars, published in 2009, and the second place Merit Book Award for No Longer Strangers, published in 2014. In 2024, we published our 35th anniversary anthology, Glimmering Hour.
Haiku Northwest began in 1988 under the leadership of Francine Porad (who passed away in September of 2006) to foster haiku writing in the Pacific Northwest and to provide local writers with current information about the local, national, and international haiku community and its publications. Haiku Northwest is within the Washington region of the Haiku Society of America (HSA), but functions as an independent group. Haiku Northwest holds monthly meetings, runs the annual Seabeck Haiku Getaway retreat, and publishes regional anthologies of haiku and related poetry. Most of the group’s members live in the Seattle area, but many haiku poets from the Puget Sound area and farther afield also attend Haiku Northwest meetings. The Haiku Northwest group has no membership dues, and visitors are always welcome to attend all events.
Haiku Northwest received official status as a nonprofit corporation in the State of Washington on December 13, 2021.
Original site established on AOL Hometown on February 14, 2004.
Site established on Google Sites on October 8, 2008.
Site migrated to New Google Sites on October 4, 2021.
Web Manager: Michael Dylan Welch (WelchM@aol.com).
Original monochrome Haiku Northwest logo: Susan K. Miller.
Current color Haiku Northwest logo: Dejah Léger.
All poems and prose appearing on this site are the copyright of their respective authors.
Site Copyright © 2004–2025 by Michael Dylan Welch.