Best of the Haiku Challenge (May 2025)

Because of their soft color and sweet, intoxicating scent, lilacs are associated with the joy we feel at the peak of springtime—a joy that, by its very nature, must be fleeting. Thus, they symbolize love and beauty, as well as the pain of letting go. Each of the winning and honorable mention poems for last month’s challenge honored the power of this beautiful flower to awaken the complex feelings we associate with the passing of spring.

Congratulations to all! To read additional poems of merit from recent months, visit our Tricycle Haiku Challenge group on Facebook.

You can submit a haiku for the current challenge here.

Spring Season Word: Lilac

WINNER:

before the big storm
I go out and cut lilacs
trying to save spring

— Kelly Westhoff

It is now generally accepted that a haiku in English does not have to rhyme. But that has not always been the case. In the effort to make their verses sound more poetic to Western ears, early poets and translators of haiku often resorted to end rhyme—usually between the first and third lines, as in the following, written in the 1940s by Kenneth Yasuda:

Here at parting now,
Let me speak by breaking
A lilac from the bough.

Yasuda used end rhyme both in his original poems and his translations, but he seemed to realize that he was the last influential champion of that approach. Following the prevailing trend of free verse poetry to displace classical forms, rhyming haiku had become obsolete by the mid-twentieth century. Nevertheless, the feeling that a haiku ought to preserve what Imagist poets called “the musical phrase” lingered on in the popular imagination.

Yasuda conceded the point in his 1957 book The Japanese Haiku. While acknowledging that haiku might continue to employ occasional end rhyme, he suggested that its music was more likely to be heard internally—as assonance, alliteration, or the occasional slant rhyme. Of the options for producing a musical phrase in 17 syllables, he saw these as the most promising techniques.

Last month’s winning haiku offers a case in point. The initial “b” and “s” consonants combine with the vowel sounds in “before” and “storm,” “I” and “try” to prepare us for the turn of thought in the final line.

Knowing that the lilacs will not survive the approaching storm, the poet cuts as many sprigs from the bush as she has vases to fill in her house. Only well along in this process does it occur to her that the gesture is futile. There is no way to save spring.

The sounds of the poem convey that bittersweet realization as much as the meaning of its words. If poetry is music, haiku are essentially birdsongs—precise little bursts of rhythm and sound that enter the ear to quicken the heart, bringing us into sympathy with the beauty and sadness of this world.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

i had nothing left
it was just one of those days
then there were lilacs

— Nancie Zivetz-Gertler

all the syllables
in the world could not contain
the smell of lilac

— Ryan Nichols

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You can find more on May’s season word, as well as relevant haiku tips, in last month’s challenge below:

Spring season word: “Lilac”

only the blue vase
the bedside table and you
lilac festival

Eros is an essential element of all spring poetry, from ancient to modern times. The month of May is a wedding where everyone is getting married, a ceremony where everything says, “I do!” — Clark Strand

Submit as many haiku as you please on the spring season word “lilac.” Your poems must be written in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively, and should focus on a single moment of time happening now.

Be straightforward in your description and try to limit your subject matter. Haiku are nearly always better when they don’t have too many ideas or images. So make your focus the season word* and try to stay close to that.

*REMEMBER: To qualify for the challenge, your haiku must be written in 5-7-5 syllables and include the word “lilac.”

Haiku Tip: Enter a Yearly Contest!

Founded by Kiyoshi and Kiyoko Tokutomi in 1975, the California-based Yuki Teikei Haiku Society takes its name from a popular approach to writing haiku in modern-day Japan. Yuki means “with season,” while teikei means “having formal pattern.” Taken together, the words describe the two most familiar elements of haiku: the 5-7-5 syllable pattern and the use of season words. Since 1978, the society has sponsored an annual contest for formal haiku in English, for which the season words are pre-assigned.

In addition to the poems that you submit for our Tricycle Challenge this month, to hone your skills, you may wish to review the season words for the 2025 Kiyoshi & Kiyoko Tokutomi Memorial Haiku Contest and write haiku on any that resonate with you. From among those poems, choose your favorites to send to the contest following the submission guidelines on the society’s website. The deadline is May 31, and you can submit your haiku by email.

The Yuki Teikei approach to writing haiku was pioneered by Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959), the most influential haiku teacher of the 20th century. Kyoshi wrote haiku as an objective sketch from nature and encouraged others to do the same. His “just-the-facts” approach to poetry became part of the DNA of modern haiku, and every poet can benefit from learning to write this way. Yuki Teikei haiku teach us how to convey subtle thoughts and feelings without stating them directly, relying on the images to speak for themselves.

A note on lilacs: Lilacs are native to Europe and Asia but are now cultivated in temperate zones throughout the world. They grow as small trees from 2 to 10 meters in height, producing fragrant flowers that vary in color from white to pink to purple. Lilac blossoms appear in late spring, often lasting through early summer, although the month most commonly associated with them is May, which is when most lilac festivals occur. Because of their beauty and intoxicating fragrance, lilacs are often associated with love. The African-American novelist Richard Wright (1998-1960) celebrated the erotic symbolism of the flower in a haiku that recalls the fertility rituals of the ancient world:

Coming from the woods,
the bull has a lilac sprig
dangling from a horn