It’s Time to Nominate Poems for the 2025 Touchstone Award
It’s already time! We are open for your nominations for the 2025 Touchstone Award for Individual Poems. It is time to start reflecting on your favorite English-language haiku and senryu published in 2025.
The Touchstone is an award, not a contest. It is our goal to recognize the best haiku and senryu published each calendar year. We wish to present to our panelists as broad and top-flight a selection of poems as possible.
We invite individuals in the community to participate using this FORM (submissions may be made by this form only – please do not post in the comments). Please send us two (2) of your favorites, only one (1) of which can be your own work (or you can send two [2] that belong to other poets). Nominated poems must have been published in a paper, journal, or contest in 2025. Haiku and senryu that are self-published or appear on personal blogs are ineligible.
Please submit your nominations no later than year’s end. Supply complete citations: journal name, volume, and number, or complete contest information (no acronyms).
Previous award recipients are displayed in the Touchstone Archive.
You can find more information on eligibility and how to submit nominations on the Touchstone Award for Individual Poems home page.
Notes:
Please familiarize yourselves with the panelists, as any poems nominated for these folks are ineligible and are removed from the list. The same goes for the Coordinator of the Touchstone Award for Individual Poems, the President, and the Chair of the Board.
All duplicate nominations are culled, so having a poem of your own nominated more than once serves no purpose.
Please refrain from sending in multiple nomination forms. All nominations are tracked by our database. Any nominations beyond those permitted will be deleted and only the first will be counted.
We look forward to seeing your nominations soon!
Robin Smith
Coordinator, Touchstone Award for Individual Poems
Comments (3)
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spring pardon
a
small bug stands
on porch screen
I hope we give newbies a chance. Seeing some of the same names on here over and over.
Note the word anonymous–
How Are the Winning Haiku Selected?
In the first round, the five panel members consider the entire anonymous roster and nominate ten of the most exceptional poems of their choosing. These become the Long List. In the second round, the panel discusses the merits of the long-listed poems and ranks their top selections, of which the highest-scoring poems become the Short List. In the final round, the panel discusses the merits of the short-listed poems and ranks their top selections from the Short List, of which the 5 highest-scoring poems are recognized with Touchstone Awards. Once the awarded poems have been determined, the panel members write commentaries for each. Authors and citations for winning poems are revealed to the judges along with the public.