FIRST ANNUAL NMWA WILDERNESS HAIKU CONTEST

Wilderness provides many of us with awe-inspiring or transformational experiences, something pertaining to any of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, or smelling- hearing a bird’s song or seeing shadow play in the mountains.

In light of this, NMWA is offering its First Annual Wilderness Haiku Contest.
The top three winners will be read at our 2010 Annual Conference on Oct. 23, 2010, and included in the 2011 Wild Guide, distributed throughout New Mexico and the southwest.

English-Language Haiku does not need to follow the prescribed form of three lines of 5-7-5 syllables, but we ask that submissions conform to three lines totaling 17 syllables or less. The average length in English is about 13 syllables. Here’s an example:

midday hush
the rasp of a mallard
calling his mate

(poem by Ray Rasmussen, from the “Heron’s Nest” haiku website)

Now it’s your turn. Send your Haiku to: roger@nmwild.org or nathan@nmwild.org. Deadline for submissions is October 1, 2010.