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The theme for this year is to "share the joy of cherry blossoms!" Submit your haiku in tribute to cherry blossoms for the 2012 Haiku Invitational.

"Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift." - Albert Einstein

The coming year's Haiku Invitaitonal will begin accepting submissions from March 1 - June 4, 2012. Please join us in writing your haiku this spring to celebrate Vancouver's cherry blossoms!

Vancouver loves its flowering cherry trees - all 40,000 of them!  While they bloom from March through May, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival invites you to celebrate their beauty with your haiku. The ephemeral nature of the blossoming of cherry trees teaches us all to celebrate life now. Similarly, haiku captures a fleeting moment in time with deep awareness and subtle appreciation. We encourage both budding and seasoned poets to join other poets from around the world in honouring our awe-inspiring cherry trees. The Festival welcomes haiku submissions that capture the essence of cherry blossoms while honouring our relations to each other and the natural world.

Winners will be published by Haiku Canada, Rice Paper, Ripples and on the VCBF website. Top poems in five main categories (Youth, B.C., Canada, United States, and International) will also appear on TransLink SkyTrains and busses all over Metro Vancouver, receive celebrity readings and be featured in creative ways during the next festival in 2013. Past submissions have arrived from as faraway as Australia, Bangladesh, Croatia, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Malta, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

This year, internationally recognized poet, Beverley George, has been invited to be the Festival guest judge.

More on Beverley George:

Beverley Geoerge is the founder/editor of Eucalypt: a tanka journal (www.eucalpyt.info) Australia's first journal for tanka only.

Between 2000-2006 she edited 12 issues of Yellow Moon: a literary magazine for writers of haiku and other verse. She enjoys international networking and has served regularly as a judge for the Seashells Game (UK). Beverley was a speaker at the 3rd Haiku Pacific Rim Conference, Matsuyama, 2007, attended Haiku Aotearoa, New Zealand 2008, convened the 4th Haiku Pacific Rim Conference, Terrigal, 2009 and was a delegate speaker at the 6th International Tanka Festival, Tokyo 2009.  Beverley’s international first prizes for haiku and tanka include the British Haiku Society JW Hackett Award 2003 (UK); the 3rd Ashiya International Festa 2004 [Japan], the Tanka Society of America’s International Contest 2006, the Genkissu! World Wide Hekinan Haiku Contest 2009 [Japan] and the Saigyo Awards 2010 [US]. In 2011 she gained 2ndplace in the Kaji Aso Studio International Haiku awards  [USA] and in the  Foreign Language Category 16th Kusamakura International Haiku Competition 2011 [Kumamoto, Japan].

Beverley was president of the Haiku Society of Australia 2006-2010. She is a Writing Fellow of the Fellowship of Australian Writers and twice won the WB Yeats Poetry Prize for Australia and New Zealand, as well as first place in the Vera Newsom and the Society of Women Writers poetry competitions. Her short stories have been published in mainstream magazines and her first book for children was published in 2006.

Some Suggestions for Writing Haiku

They may look simple, but writing outstanding haiku requires much dedication and craft.  Here are a few pointers that may help.

• Be clear.  The best haiku present clear images that everyone can understand.  Of course, deeper meanings may take many readings to fathom, but you'll make a great start by focusing on sensory images - things you can see, hear, smell, touch, or taste.
• Be suggestive.  A haiku should hint at some sort of emotion or point of view rather than naming or analyzing it.  Usually a haiku will have two parts, and deeper meanings or emotions often arise out of the unstated relationship between the two parts.
• Read widely.  Reading published haiku will help you learn new techniques, spot what works and what doesn't, and deepen your understanding of the genre.  As a start, the VCBF website presents all the top haiku from previous years, and we have provided additional information and links for you on our Haiku History and Teaching Haiku pages.
• Seek feedback.  Sharing your poems with friends and family or other poets can help you spot weak lines and unclear writing that you may not see yourself.  Both Haiku Canada and the Haiku Society of America have regional chapters through which you can meet or correspond with experienced poets in your area, many of whom are happy to help others improve their work.
• Practice.  No poet has ever written a top-notch haiku without writing dozens of forgettable ones first.  Keep a notebook where you can jot down haiku as the inspiration hits and then review them at your leisure.
• Most of all; have fun!