Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards (2005–2013)

The Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards, sponsored by the Haiku Poets of Central Maryland, was an annual poetry competition founded in August 2004 in memory of Baltimore-based haiku poet and teacher Anita Sadler Weiss. The first contest was held in 2005 and, following a hiatus in 2012, was held again in 2013 but then discontinued when the HPCM disbanded.

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Regulations and Procedures

This information is adapted from the description of the 2013 contest on the Contests and Awards Forum on The Haiku Foundation website.

Deadline: Normally mid-April of the contest year.

Sponsor: The Haiku Poets of Central Maryland.

Eligibility: Open to the public, aged 16 and up. The contest coordinators were prohibited from entering.

Awards: Total of $300.00 in prize money: First Place, $150; Second Place, $100 Third Place, $50.00. Five ranked Honorable Mentions were also awarded.

Submissions: All entries were to be the original work of the poet, unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere. 

Entry fee: $1.00 per poem. Poets could enter up to 15 haiku. The entry payment was to accompany submission.

Submission guidelines: Entrants were advised to print or type each individual haiku in English on three separate 3˝ x 5˝ index cards. On the upper left corner of one card entrants were to print or type their name, address, and email address. A No. 10 SASE (or SAE plus US$1 for return postage for entries sent from outside the U.S.) should be included for notification. The entry fee was to be paid in U.S. currency or check or money order payable in U.S. dollars to “HPCM/Elizabeth Fanto.”

Entries were to be sent to: Haiku Poets of Central Maryland, c/o Elizabeth Fanto, Timonium, MD. Email entries were not accepted.

Number of poets and submissions: Information was usually not published.

Adjudication: The names of the judges were announced concurrently with the winning haiku.

Notification/publication: Award recipients were announced each April in honor of Anita Sadler Weiss’s birthday. Notification of winning poems was sent to all competition participants and was made available to members of the public who had provided an SASE. The winning poems were also published in The Dragonfly, the newsletter of the Haiku Poets of Central Maryland, and often in the newsletter of the Haiku Society of America as well. All rights remained with the poets.

8th Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards, 2013

Judge	an’ya
First Prize	Joan Murphy, West Hempstead, New York	the mourning-dove ascends with a whistle —    ripe mulberries
Second Prize	Scott Mason, Chappaqua, New York	passing through her snow angel nocturnal tracks
Third Prize	Jeff Hoagland, Hopewell, New Jersey	church bell the pigeons always come back
First Honorable Mention	Sandra Simpson, Tauranga, New Zealand	smoothing out her instructions for polenta finches work the grass
Second Honorable Mention	Anne Elise Burgevin, Pennsylvania Furnace, Pennsylvania	fox sparrow seeing things in the snow
Third Honorable Mention	Patricia Daharsh, Pinellas Park, Florida	thistledown the bagpiper’s tune blowing away
Fourth Honorable Mention	Alan S. Bridges, Littleton, Massachusetts	vernal equinox the river licks the top of its banks
Fifth Honorable Mention	Phyllis Lee, Sebring, Ohio	around the cabin large boot prints dodge violets

[Note: The Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards were on hiatus in 2012]

7th Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards, 2011

Judge	Roberta Beary, Washington, D.C.
First Prize	Jayne Miller, Hazel Green, Wisconsin	cold front everything she stores inside
Second Prize	Sheila K. Barksdale, Gainesville, Florida	house of closed doors: saffron rice fragrance drifting through
Third Prize	Jennifer Corpe, Wyoming, Michigan	scent of crabapple I let the wind have its way
First Honorable Mention	Chen-ou Liu, Ajax, Ontario	roadside puddle a street dog licks the winter moon
Second Honorable Mention	Bill Pauly, Dubuque, Iowa	new moon she lets him feel her mended bones
Third Honorable Mention	Roland Packer, Hamilton, Ontario	gust of leaves the nervous laugh of the bride
Fourth Honorable Mention	Alan S. Bridges, Littleton, Massachusetts	the slow click of a baseball card stuck in a wheelchair
Fifth Honorable Mention	Ernest J. Berry, Picton, New Zealand	mountain track an old sandal at the rest stop

6th Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards, 2010

Judge	Kirsty Karkow, Waldoboro, Maine
First Prize	Anthony Nasuta, Timonium, Maryland	bare branch a finch sings into the rising sun
Second Prize	Scott Mason, Chautauqua, New York	child’s picture book—        oh the places                I never went
Third Prize	Catherine J.S. Lee, Eastport, Maine	noontime heat  the pickup shedding strands of hay
First Honorable Mention	Bill Pauly, Dubuque, Iowa	empty nest— prying rusty nails out of the tree house
Second Honorable Mention	Stevie Strang, Lake Arrowhead, California	lazy afternoon the sound of the stream repeating itself
Third Honorable Mention	Ernest J. Berry, Picton, New Zealand	summer house shades of rust on my spade
Fourth Honorable Mention	Roland Packer, Hamilton, Ontario	morning breeze in the campfire ashes a moth’s wing
Fifth Honorable Mention	Scott Mason, Chautauqua, New York	city heat wave …    the wind-lifted flap       on the bronze general’s coat

5th Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards, 2009

Judge	Susumu Takiguchi, Bicester, Oxon, U.K.
First Prize	Ernest J. Berry, Picton, New Zealand	spring growth stepping stones to nowhere
Second Prize	Origa (Olga Hooper), Okemos, Michigan	off the cliff … flying to the very core of being
Third Prize	Pamela A. Babusci, Rochester, New York	winter mountains i lose myself in whiteness
First Honorable Mention	Emily Romano, Boonton, New Jersey	marigold at dusk: a bee’s behind protruding
Second Honorable Mention	Ernest J. Berry, Picton, New Zealand	snake skin the Indian summer slips away
Third Honorable Mention	Desirée McMurry, Franklin, Missouri	cemetery tree the wind takes its final leaf
Fourth Honorable Mention	Karen Van Ostrand, Sykesville, Maryland	at the cottage throaty frogs serenade my dreams
Fifth Honorable Mention	Ernest J. Berry, Picton, New Zealand	summer my golden retriever rolls in it

4th Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards, 2008

Judges	Joseph Kirschner and Charles Trumbull, Evanston, Illinois
Number of entries	337 haiku by 65 poets from 5 countries
First Prize	Tony Thompson, Lufkin, Texas	mountain stillness— in the cabin a curtain opens
Second Prize	Roberta Beary, Washington, D.C.	winter dusk— when dad would phone
Third Prize	David Grayson, Alameda, California	the coldness of my pocket change— cardboard shelter
First Honorable Mention	Scott Mason, Chappaqua, New York	between constellations and dogwood petals all I don’t know
Second Honorable Mention	David Grayson, Alameda, California	my son switches to a bigger bat— spring wind
Third Honorable Mention	Barry George, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	sunrise at Gettysburg … locusts
Fourth Honorable Mention	Tony Thompson, Lufkin, Texas	first night alone losing even at solitaire
Fifth Honorable Mention	Paul Miller, San Francisco, California	scenic vista looking out for ticks

3rd Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards, 2007

Judge	Billie Wilson, Juneau, Alaska
First Prize	Kate Bosek-Sill, Rochester, New York	summer dawn the bones of the bonfire charred black
Second Prize	Ron Moss, Leslie Vale, Tasmania, Australia	whaling station— the weight of rust on the snowline
Third Prize	Karen Sohne, Toronto, Ontario	in my pocket a small stone from the top of the mountain
First Honorable Mention	Vanessa Proctor, Pymble, NSW, Australia	starry night snapping the wishbone by myself
Second Honorable Mention	Wanda D. Cook, Hadley, Massachusetts	fresh snow the cat prints change direction
Third Honorable Mention	Bill Pauly, Dubuque, Iowa	uprooting the lilies— he forgets what year his father died
Fourth Honorable Mention	Desirée McMurry, Franklin, Missouri	all the shadows become one winter evening
Fifth Honorable Mention	Scott Mason, Chappaqua, New York	ebb tide— a clamshell nestled in seagull tracks

2nd Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards, 2006

Judge	Michael Dylan Welch, Foster City, California
First Prize	Tim Singleton, Columbia, Maryland	father & son— just there the Pleiades
Second Prize	John Ower, Alamogordo, New Mexico	night call— a clock ticking at the other end
Third Prize	Francine Banwarth, Dubuque, Iowa	autumn sunset … she lowers the silk into the dye
First Honorable Mention	Tim Singleton, Columbia, Maryland	Van Gogh gallery— the bus group moves from painting to painting
Second Honorable Mention	Angeline Johnston, Seattle, Washington	weeding the roots come up clutching stones
Third Honorable Mention	Scott Mason, Chappaqua, New York	New Year’s Day            our angel returns            to the attic
Fourth Honorable Mention	Michael Fessler, Sagamihara-shi, Kanagawa-ken,Japan	decades later still shifting his weight to influence the shot
Fifth Honorable Mention	Ernest J. Berry, Picton, New Zealand	golden wedding  she’s forgotten       his name

1st Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards, 2005

Judge	Susumu Takiguchi, Bicester, Oxon, U.K.
First Prize	Francine Banwarth, Dubuque, Iowa	summer moon      cellist holding the breath      of the bow
Second Prize	Michael Dylan Welch, Foster City, California	cold rain— the inning ends with nobody on
Third Prize	Peter Yovu, Middlesex, Vermont	the light one window allows— rain changing to snow
First Honorable Mention	Ernest J. Berry, Picton, New Zealand	autumn night firelight draws in      the walls
Second Honorable Mention	Tim Singleton, Columbia, Maryland	summer circus— the elephant smell comes to town
Third Honorable Mention	Margaret Chula, Portland, Oregon	summer reunion my younger sister’s perfume the same as mine
Fourth Honorable Mention	Emily Romano, Boonton, New Jersey	still morning— a watersnake leaves a scalloped wake
Fifth Honorable Mention	Tim Singleton, Columbia, Maryland	cul de sac— a mourning dove whistles into flight

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Compiled by the Haikupedia Editors