Vancouver loves its flowering cherry trees—more than 36,000 of them! While they usually bloom from March through May, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival invites you to celebrate their beauty with your haiku. The ephemeral nature of the cherry tree teaches us all to celebrate life now. Similarly, haiku captures a fleeting moment in time with deep awareness and subtle appreciation. We encourage both budding and seasoned poets to join other poets from around the world in honouring our awe-inspiring cherry trees by writing a haiku on the theme of cherry blossoms.

Past submissions have arrived from as far away as Australia, Bangladesh, Croatia, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Malta, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom, and the United Sates. Winning poems will be selected by Michael Dylan Welch, vice president of the Haiku Society of America, and will announced in the fall of 2010. Winners will be published by Haiku Canada, Rice Paper, and on the VCBF website. Top poems in five main categories (youth, B.C., Canada, United States, and International) will also appear on TransLink SkyTrains and buses all over Metro Vancouver, receive celebrity readings by the conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and be featured in creative ways during the next festival in 2011.

Haiku is an is an ideal way to celebrate cherry blossoms, so it's no wonder that our internationally respected Haiku Invitational, now in its fifth year, lies at the heart of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival. The deadline for our 2010 Haiku Invitational is May 31, 2010. Please join us in writing your haiku this spring to celebrate Vancouver's cherry blossoms!

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR HAIKU! (deadline: May 31, 2010)

 

Some Suggestions for Writing Haiku

They may look simple, but writing outstanding haiku requires dedication and craft. Here are a few pointers that may help.

• Be clear. The best haiku present clear images that everyone can understand. Of course, deeper meanings may take many readings to fathom, but if you’ll make a great start by focusing on sensory images—things you can see, hear, smell, touch, or taste.

• Be suggestive. A haiku should hint at some sort of emotion or point of view rather than naming or analyzing it. Usually a haiku will have two parts, and deeper meanings or emotions often arise out of the unstated relationship between the two parts.

 • Read widely. Reading published haiku will help you learn new techniques, spot what works and what doesn’t, and deepen your understanding of the genre. As a start, the VCBF website presents all the top haiku from previous years, and we have provided additional information and links for you on our About Haiku and Teaching Haiku pages.

 • Seek feedback. Sharing your poems with friends and family or other poets can help you spot weak lines and unclear writing that you may not see yourself. Both Haiku Canada and the Haiku Society of America have regional chapters through which you can meet or correspond with experienced poets in your area, many of whom are happy to help others improve their work.

 • Practice. No poet has ever written a top-notch haiku without writing dozens of forgettable ones first. Keep a notebook where you can jot down haiku as the inspiration hits and then revise them at your leisure.

 • Most of all, have fun!