Home > Newsroom > Golden Triangle BID Announces 2019 Golden Haiku Winners
Washington, DC (March 11, 2019) – Award-winning haiku poetry submissions from around the world and around town can be seen now on the bustling sidewalks of Washington, D.C.’s Golden Triangle Business Improvement District (BID), a 43-block neighborhood that stretches from the White House to Dupont Circle. Having received nearly 2,000 entries from 50 countries and 41 states, and the District of Columbia, the Golden Triangle Business BID today proudly announces the 2019 awardees of its sixth annual Golden Haiku contest, sponsored by TD Bank.
The internationally celebrated contest invites poets to submit up to three haiku to be judged by an expert panel. For the contest’s purposes, the Golden Triangle uses the Haiku Society of America’s guidelines for contemporary haiku. This means that although participants can adhere to the familiar 5-7-5 syllable rule, it is not required. Haiku are meant to be short, breezy poems that evoke an image in the reader’s mind. This year’s contest theme was “Spring in the City.”
Now through April, award-winning haiku entries, along with dozens of honorable mentions, will be featured in tree boxes along some of the city’s most busy sidewalks. The colorful signs will brighten the winter landscape and remind us all that spring is around the corner. In total, more than 300 signs of haiku submissions will be posted within the Golden Triangle BID.
This year’s Golden Haiku award-winning authors and their selected haiku submissions are as follows:
night bus… a handprint fills with moonlight
– Paul Chambers
spring rain a tire swing full of tadpoles
– Malintha Perera
reaching the top of the metro escalator – a warm breeze
– Jonathan Lewis
Each of the award winners will receive gift cards as prizes.
“Every year our Golden Haiku competition extends its reach even further – engaging poets from around the world, and in our own neighborhood, flooding DC’s central business district with art,” said Leona Agouridis, Executive Director of the Golden Triangle BID. “Seeing the poetry presented so beautifully along the bustling streets really puts a smile on the faces of passersby, helping them push through the last few bleak weeks of winter towards the promise of spring.”
The Golden Triangle’s esteemed panel of judges included:
Abigail Friedman is the author of The Haiku Apprentice: Memoirs of Writing Poetry in Japan (Stone Bridge Press), I Wait for the Moon: 100 Haiku of Momoko Kuroda (Stone Bridge Press) and Street Chatter Fading (Larkspur Press). She is on the Board of Trustees of the Japan-America Society of Washington, D.C., and CEO of The Wisteria Group.
Kit Pancoast Nagamura has been a columnist for The Japan Times for over a decade, and appears as a regular on NHK WORLD‘s “HAIKU MASTERS” and “Journeys in Japan” programs. She is a recent prize winner in Japan’s prestigious Ito-en Oi Cha Haiku Contest, a member of the Haiku International Association and will be judging from Japan.
John Stevenson is managing editor of The Heron’s Nest. A former President of the Haiku Society of America, he has served as editor of Frogpond. John Stevenson is the author of books such as Quiet Enough, Some of the Silence, Live Again, (d)ark and Emoji Moon.
For more information about the Golden Haiku contest and a full list of award winners, honorable mentions and judges’ favorites, visit www.goldentriangledc.com/haiku.
About the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District Formed in 1998, the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District (BID) works to enhance Washington, D.C.’s central business district, the 43-square-block neighborhood stretching from The White House to Dupont Circle. Home to more than 6,000 businesses, the BID’s primary focus is to provide a clean, safe, and vibrant environment for hundreds of thousands of area workers and residents, and millions of visitors, and to encourage economic development through capital improvement projects, public art, sustainability and events programs. For more information please visit: https://goldentriangledc.com/ and connect on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Media Contacts Mareike Finck mfinck@goldentriangledc.com 202-463-6986
Sam Schmieder sschmieder@goldentriangledc.com 202-684-8923
