Thank you to everyone that entered our Paperboats Haiku Competition. We had a huge number of entries so congratulations to all of the winners and highly commended entries.
A special thank you to our guest judge Kevin MacNeil and to the children of Outdoor Kindergarten and School ZeMě, Řevnice, in the Czech Republic for providing the wonderful illustrations to go with the haiku.
blue sky day
still, acting as bellwether
this unknown cat
I tend my garden
as a meditation hope
in a broken world
in the sunset
of a cloudy day
windmill
winter evening
around the Netflix fireplace
in a thick jumper
drip, drip, drip —
under the leaked tap
a dented slab
helplessness
her grandchildren’s hair also
smells of coal smoke
Her belly swollen
Ocean births the agony
of what’s inside her
Autumn wind shaking
old leaves off the poplar trees.
I make the same wish.
please tell me again
how I started a gas war
I just drive to work
in it’s cozy den
a freshly hatched kiwi
choking on coal dust
A buried fossil
So fragile it could crumble
When it’s uncovered
Warming winds whisper
Icebergs weep in silent tears
Earth calls for our care.
Waves crash, winds collide
nature’s voice cries out for change
the world needs to stop
room service! –
I change the old straw
of the insect hotel
a bowl of salad
how green my nation
used to be
nature girl
on top of her hair clip
a real butterfly
Too tired to weed
I decided to read and
called it rewilding
my fenced garden
in the fall wild boars come
to look at me
Fitheach ‘cumail suil
mointeach ruisgt’ gun ghluasad
tir a’ gabhail anail
grandpa
too weak to mow his lawn
wild flowers
Native Scottish Black Bee
Eydent wee craitur
Simmer distilled in honey–
The ling is bloomin
a robot mows
round the residential home–
all eyes watch and wait
blackbird morning
waiting for a city bus
within the fog
A fox roaming land
Everyone letting it be
A warm soul in all
Once there was a bee
The bee was a helpful bee
That made more babies
Heather sweeps the hills
Wolves return to silent glens
Wild breath fills the land
Glaciers melting
But seals still sparkling on ice
They’re slowly dying
Trees, seas, bees and us.
We are in this together.
Be hopeful for Earth.
A butterfly lands on a red flower
Chicks shatter eggs
in the nest
Kevin MacNeil is a multi-award-winning, widely published and broadcast writer who has taught and performed internationally. He has written six books (novels, poetry, aphorisms) and edited six books (including works by Robert Louis Stevenson and Iain Crichton Smith), plus he has written for cinema, stage, radio and television. He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at University of Stirling.
