In celebration of National Poetry Month, Spark Newton hosted its annual Haiku Contest, drawing an inspiring response from the community. This year’s contest received 190 submissions from 115 poets. From those entries, 22 winning poets were selected.

The 22 winning haiku have now been installed on the lawn outside the Newton Free Library, transforming public space into an open-air celebration of poetry. Throughout the summer, the poems will continue to appear in changing locations around the city, so keep an eye out and take a moment to enjoy them wherever they surface.

Spark Newton is proud to support this creative initiative, which brings poetry into everyday public life and makes the arts more accessible, engaging, and approachable for the entire community.

A celebratory reading featuring many of this year’s winning poets will take place at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 9, in the Druker Auditorium at the Newton Free Library, as part of Spark Newton’s Linda Plaut Festival of the Arts. The event is FREE and open to the public.

Haiku Newton is a part of Spark Newton’s Public Art initiative.

The 22 winning poets (in alphabetical order):

Jody Callahan

Christine Carvajal

Hugh Dun Rappaport

Julia Dun Rappaport

Eliot Fumante

Margaret Geller

Marilyn Halpern

Ruth Hoberman

Lyn Jekowsky

Debbie Knapp

Jim Krosschell

Julie Leavitt

Heona Liu

Robin Mayer Stein

Roxanna Myhrum

Grace Neilan

Susan Nisenbaum Becker

Ezra Robison

Annette Seaward

Clara Silverstein

Claudia Springer

Richard Waring