The Triveni Haiku Awards 2025

Triveni Utsav 2025

14^th September 2025, from 7.30 pm to 9.30 pm (IST) The Zoom link will be given here, closer to the date

Triveni Awards 2025

I am especially grateful to Michael Dylan Welch and Ashish Narain for serving as judges for the Triveni Awards 2025. Their integrity and warmth are deeply appreciated. Our distinguished guest speakers this year are Susan Antolin and Michael Dylan Welch, and we are eagerly looking forward to the Utsav as it unfolds.

Kashiana Singh will be our virtual Utsav host. We extend heartfelt thanks to her for graciously agreeing to join us, deliver the vote of thanks, and record this much-anticipated event.

We are equally grateful to our coordinator, Padma Rajeswari, for her tireless behind-the-scenes efforts, and to every poet who submitted their haiku to the contest. Padma gathered all the entries and forwarded them to the judges after anonymising them. Once the judges selected the winners, she cross-checked the names and finalised the order. The certificates, beautifully designed by Teji Sethi, were updated for Triveni Utsav 2025.

This Utsav also marks the celebration of Triveni Haikai India’s fourth anniversary—a milestone that makes the occasion all the more meaningful.

Now for the Triveni Awards 2025 Results!

We are delighted to share that for the Triveni Awards 2025, we received entries from 51 countries, with 333 poets contributing a total of 656 poems.

Countries and the number of participants:

India (102), USA (72), New Zealand (16), UK (15), Australia (10), Romania (9), Canada (8), Croatia (7), Italy (7), France (6), Poland (6), Sri Lanka (6), Philippines (5), Ireland (4), Japan (3), Malaysia (3), Scotland (3), Singapore (3), Bulgaria (3), Belgium (2), Brazil (2), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2), Germany (2), Hungary (2), Nigeria (2), Pakistan (2), Russia (2), Serbia (2), The Netherlands (2), Algeria (1), Czechia (1), Bexar (1), Ghana (1), Greece (1), Iran (1), Israel (1), Lithuania (1), Malta (1), Morocco (1), Nepal (1), Portugal (1), Settimo Milanese (1), Slovakia (1), South Korea (1), Spain (1), Srbija (1), Switzerland (1), Thailand (1), The Czech Republic (1), UAE (1), Zagreb (1).

Triveni Haikai India is extremely pleased with this overwhelming response and the high quality of poems received.

Cash prizes: The first-place winner receives Rs 10,000,

Second place with a prize of Rs 5,000. Third place with a prize of Rs 3,000.

Five Honourable Mentions.

Certificates for all the award winners: exquisitely designed by Teji Sethi.

— Kala Ramesh 

Triveni Awards 2025 Winners

Judges: Ashish Narain and Michael Dylan Welch

HMs are in no particular order (unranked)

Judges’ Commentaries, along with the winning poems:

If haiku are poems of shared experience, we hope you especially enjoy sharing the following selections from the 2025 Triveni Haiku Contest. We sought vivid and fresh images, often with seasonal settings, but primarily looked for joyfulness and wonder. Not every haiku is joyful, of course, but they all seem to express gratitude for whatever experience each poem highlights. In this way, haiku serve as a means of cultivating gratitude and an appreciation for life around us. Our congratulations to the poets represented here, and thanks also to many other poets whose work came close and those who took part in the joy of haiku by entering this contest. As you receive these poems, we invite you to take your time, perhaps reading each poem aloud. May each poem give you contentment and gratitude.

— Ashish Narain and Michael Dylan Welch, judges

Triveni Awards 2025: First Place:

A prize of Rs 10,000

drowsy day our watermelon seeds speckle the cat Lorraine Haig Tasmania, Australia  

What better to do on a drowsy day than to enjoy watermelon? This shared experience, indicated by “our,” has a sense of joy or delight, and the people in this light-hearted poem are having a bit of fun, perhaps by spitting the seeds toward their cat. The cat, too, is too drowsy to be concerned. The poem has the feeling of Basho’s notion of karumi, or lightness. The watermelon suggests that this is a carefree summer moment, and the poem invites us to share the delight.

— Michael

A brilliantly executed poem where every word has meaning. Watermelon strongly suggests summer. The sense of not having a care in the world is conveyed by “drowsy,” as well as by the cat who can’t be bothered to walk away, even as seeds are spat on her. The word “speckled” shows that this has been going on a while, while “our” shows that the poet is not alone. All in all, we feel a strong sense of calm and the full enjoyment of an ordinary moment, which lifts this haiku to something extraordinary.

— Ashish

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Triveni Awards 2025: Second Place

A prize of Rs 5,000

a shaft of sunlight the stairwell becomes a cathedral Adelaide B. Shaw

Somers, NY, USA

This vivid image transforms the mundane into the sacred, the ordinary into the extraordinary. A key aspect, perhaps subtle, is that this poem dwells on a private change of perception, one that’s easy to relate to. The stairwell is not a cathedral, but the shaft of light makes it seem as if it is. More importantly, the poet recognizes the sacredness of an ordinary stairwell as being equal to a cathedral, perhaps suggesting a larger awe and appreciation for everything around us.

— Michael

There is wonder in everything, and this haiku to me speaks to that. The poet’s use of “the” in qualifying the stairwell suggests that this is well known to them. Yet one shaft of sunlight — perhaps from the setting sun — is enough to transform it to something marvelous. While no season is mentioned, to me it evokes early autumn, when dust hovers in the air with just enough light that it is not a glare.

— Ashish

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Triveni Awards 2025: Third Place

A prize of Rs 3,000

sacred mountain

I tire halfway

to enlightenment

Tracy Davidson

Stratford-upon-Avon,

Warwickshire, UK

Some readers may wonder if this is a haiku or a senryu, or perhaps it doesn’t matter. However, haiku can have humour, too, and this poem’s humour pokes a bit of fun at the poet and our human frailty, even in the light of pursuing a noble aim — to climb to the top, if not to seek enlightenment. Our tiredness reminds us of our humanity, and perhaps that’s a different kind of enlightenment.

— Michael

As someone from India who has trekked extensively in the Himalayas, I found that this poem resonated with me instantly. The quiet humour adds to the appeal. However, it also caused me to pause and consider. Striving for enlightenment is hard, and it is only human to become weary halfway through.

— Ashish

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Triveni Awards 2025: Honourable Mentions

heatwave alert

children blow

on a wind chime

Pascal Pozzo di Borgo Bastia, France

It’s such a hot day that no wind stirs the wind chime. The children are wishing not just for a cooling wind but for the melodious sound of the chimes. And so there is a wind after all, coming from the mouths of children. —Michael 

The phrase and fragment complement each other well. How quiet and still it must be that bored children amuse themselves by blowing on the windchime? — Ashish

fireplace — the wall holds the shadow of an empty chair

Kavitha Sreeraj Hyderabad, India

Why is the chair empty? What loss has befallen this family? Or is there any loss at all? We feel at least an absence. On what may be a cozy yet melancholic winter night, the light of the fire draws the poet’s attention to the chair’s emptiness, and thus to whoever might normally fill it.

—Michael

 The phrase beautifully conveys the feeling of missing someone who now remains only in memory, while the fragment hints at the coming winter. A poignant poem.

—Ashish

soft breeze braiding the scent of jasmine into her tress

Padma Thampatty Wexford/PA, USA

A summer feeling suffuses this poem, where the wind is blowing a woman’s hair, and also braiding it with the jasmine scent. This richly evocative poem invites us to pause and linger, to share in this sensory moment for as long as we can.

—Michael

The image is strongly Indian. Is it a mother braiding her daughter’s hair? Or is it actually the scent that allures the poet, perhaps carried on the soft breeze?

—Ashish

summer house a layer of dust on the old fairy tales

Eufemia Griffo Settimo Milanese, Italy

After a long winter, a family returns to their summer house not only to find the dust they expected but also to notice dust on a book of fairy tales. This is not just any book, but a well-known book of old fairy tales. Those tales have been in the family for a long time, reminding us of the rich history of family tales that they’ve built over time in their summer home.

— Michael

A nostalgic poem. I see the poet returning after a long time to a place full of joyful childhood memories, as enchanting as fairy tales.

— Ashish

falling star how many of us share the same wish

Dejan Pavlinovic Pula, Croatia

A touch of subjective musing balances with the concrete image of a falling star. The introspection in this poem looks outward, beyond the private wish to wondering about the wishes of others. This poem offers a moment of vulnerable empathy.

— Michael

An intriguing poem that we can read in different ways. The poet might be talking about how common our wishes mostly are — particularly concerning our own and loved ones’ wellbeing. However, they could also be talking about a well-known individual being knocked off their pedestal.

— Ashish

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A Disclaimer

Responsibility for the originality of the haikai rests solely with the submitting poet. 

Should anyone feel it is similar to another haikai, they are encouraged to directly reach out to the concerned poet.

Triveni Haikai India will take action, if any, as recommended by the submitting poet.

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