Poet Profile

Julie Bloss Kelsey

Despite an interest in poetry from a young age, Julie Bloss Kelsey didn’t discover her love of short-form poems until after the birth of her third child. For years, haiku hadn’t made any sense to her. But once she discovered scifaiku in 2009, she had an aha! moment. Julie enjoys writing haiku, tanka, haibun and related poetry forms, along with short fiction and creative non-fiction. She is currently an editor at Frogpond and serves on the board of The Haiku Foundation, where she writes a bi-monthly column, New to Haiku.

Awards and Other Honors:

2025 & 2024 Sakura Award in the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Contest, 2024 Katanogahara Monogatari Prize in the 5th Star Haiku Contest, 2023 Winner in the British Haiku Society’s David Cobb Haiku Award, 2022 First Place in the Jane Reichhold Haiga Contest (for Photographic/Mixed Media category), 2021 Winner of Sable Books’ International Women’s Haiku Contest, 2021 DC Area Winner in the Golden Haiku Poetry Contest, 2019 Winner in the Sonic Boom Annual Senryu Contest, 2018 Winner in the Marlene Mountain Memorial Haiku Contest, 2018 & 2010 Second place in the International Kusamakura Haiku Competition, 2016 Second place (tied) in the Dwarf Stars Award, 2011 Winner of the Dwarf Stars Award .

Books Published:

The Call of Wildflowers (Title IX Press, 2020); Grasping the Fading Light: A Journey Through PTSD (Sable Books, 2023); After Curfew (Cuttlefish Books, 2023).

first holiday meal––
my mother-in-law's tentacles
in every dish

at the roundabout
a blind snowman
points the way home

at the barre
the graceful arms
of a spiral galaxy

spring skies clouding over soft onions

evolution— 
my son draws a dinosaur
for a girl

a lapful of puppy curled into my ennui

Credits:

“first holiday meal – Star*Line 37.2, Spring 2014; “at the roundabout” – Fire in the Treetops: Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of Haiku North America (anthology), October 2015; “at the barre” – Rattle 49 (Fall 2015); “spring skies” – Bones 12, March 15, 2017; “evolution” — The Heron’s Nest Vol. XX, No. 3: Sept. 2018; “a lapful of puppy” – Prune Juice Journal, December 2024.