20/04/2026
I had a wonderful opportunity to help judge a haiku contest this month. My co-judge, Scott Wiggerman, and I are delighted to announce the six winners of the 2026 Nicholas A. Virgilio Haiku & Senryu Contest for Students in 7th through 12 grade (co-sponsored by the Haiku Society of America). Congratulations to these young haijin! Here's the link to the winning poems with our commentaries:
Ah, mixtapes! Decades before anyone curated playlists on Spotify, young people recorded carefully chosen sequences of songs on cassette tapes, often directly from the radio. They (we?) brought mixtapes to parties and shared them with friends. This tiny poem is an effective example of how readers m...