Mukai Farm & Garden has announced the winners of a haiku festival held on International Haiku Day on Sunday, April 16, with first-place entries from two local poets, joined by one writer from out-of-state and another abroad.

Countries all over the world recognize this popular style of poetry. Mukai’s Haiku Festival drew over 500 poem entries from a dozen countries. All are now on view at the farm through May.

The 2023 Mukai Haiku Festival winners by category are:

Heritage

Mom’s 3-by-5 card:

Fold apple pieces gently

into the cake dough.

— Ann Spiers

Nature

strawberry picking

my young daughter has sunshine

dripping down her chin

— Kelly Sargent

Reflections

on my window sill

all the packets of spring seeds

I never planted …

— Adele Evershed

Social Justice

caught on a riptide

a suitcase spills its contents

old shirts and new dreams

— Adele Evershed

Young Poet (1-12)

Salmonberries bloom

Morning dew settles on their

Delicate petals

— Juno Leonard

Young Poet (13-18)

Stop war

By shaking hands

With sunflowers

— Yoshiki Nobuhara

“We had 576 haiku submittals from 13 countries around the world,” said Stan Kitashima, Mukai board member. “The global reach is very impressive.”

Another 200 poems from local second graders are on view on the porch of the Mukai family home. These were late additions to the festival and are collected in notebooks by class.

Mukai Farm & Garden is celebrating the poets throughout the month of May. The farm is a place to experience a ginkgo — an experience that includes a purposeful walk outdoors in nature to see, hear, smell, touch and taste, and jot notes on your thoughts and feelings, according to Kay Longhi, the Haiku Festival’s director.

Ginkgo outings regularly occur on this holiday around the world. Longhi describes the Mukai Garden as a perfect place for such a walk, with the Japanese garden budding into spring and eight cherry trees soon to be in bloom.

International Haiku Day also inspires haiga — an art form pairing music, video or painting with a haiku. The images and poetry are combined to be simple and profound and to capture the deeper meaning. See examples online here.

Mukai Farm & Garden is open 365 days of the year, and free to all visitors. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and features the first Japanese garden designed by a woman in America.

For information about Mukai Farm & Garden and its programs, and how to donate or volunteer, visit mukaifarmandgarden.org.