Friends' 2022 Spring Gorge Haiku Challenge

By bringing treasured landscapes to life in our minds and reminding ourselves of what we love most about them, we can escape, inspire, and unite.

In celebration of National Poetry Month and International Haiku Poetry Day on April 17, this spring we hosted the third annual Friends of the Columbia Gorge Spring Haiku Challenge. More than 155 haiku were submitted for the 2022 challenge; view a selection of 22 entries for 2022.

Origins of haiku challenge

In spring of 2020, soon after the COVID-19 pandemic started keeping people largely confined to home, distanced from other people and, for non-Gorge residents, from the Gorge itself, Friends launched a Spring Gorge Haiku Challenge. The idea was to stay connected virtually and celebrate the Gorge’s wonders by writing three simple but meaningful lines of verse. We even called upon then-Oregon Poet Laureate Kim Stafford to record a haiku primer and offer his own Gorge haiku.