Poetry Newton - Welcome to Haiku Newton

Many thanks to everyone who made this year's Haiku Newton project a wonderful success.

The celebratory reading on June 9 was a high point of the season. Co-directors Grey Held and Elizabeth Lund were delighted to welcome more than 60 attendees.

The event featured a reading of all the 2025 winning poems. As Grey Held explained to the audience, Haiku Newton usually selects and displays 20 poems each year. The submissions this spring were so strong, however, that 30 haiku were selected.

Fifteen winners attended the event and read their work to the enthusiastic audience. Among the readers were two student poets and the grandmother of another student writer. Grey read the poems of those who could not attend because of distance or previous commitments. As Elizabeth noted, some of this year's winners live in Italy, Poland, and India.

The installation is no longer on display at the Library. Half the signs have been moved to the Boys and Girls Club, 675 Watertown Street. The other signs have been installed at First Baptist Church in Newton Centre, 848 Beacon Street.

If you can't see the signs in person, you'll can see the poems on this website (see below).

Many thanks to everyone who made this year's project so special.

BY ANNA BAYNTON

Anna Baynton lives in Brookline, Mass.

BY CARLA SCHWARTZ

Carla Schwartz’s poems have appeared in Rattle and other journals and in her collections Signs of Marriage, Mother, One More Thing, and Intimacy with the Wind. Learn more at https://carlapoet.com, or on all social media @cb99videos. Carla Schwartz received the New England Poetry Club E.E. Cummings Prize.

BY KENNETH BOGER

Kennerth Boger was born in Concord, North Carolina, graduated from Duke University, served in the US Army from 1968-71, including 1 year in Vietnam as a military advisor to the Vietnamese Popular Forces south of DaNang. Kenneth attended the University of Chicago business school and Boston College Law School. He practiced development stage company and venture capital law for 25 years. He has spent significant time over the last 15 years, after retirement, traveling world-wide with his wife of 56 years. They’ve lived happily in Newton for most of the last 52 years!

BY CLAUDIA DOHERTY

Claudia Doherty is a visual artist with work held in private collections around the world. Specializing in oils and acrylics, she is drawn to moody, earthy tones and subject matter that is both beautiful and bleak. She seeks to capture the poetry of a figure, an object, or a place — bringing depth and character to her work through texture, often scraping and layering paint to create a hard-scrabble look of imperfection. Born in Boston and raised in New England, Claudia earned her BA in Economics from the University of New Hampshire before beginning a career in financial services. After the births of her three children, she began seriously pursuing art, studying under established local artists such as Eli Cedrone.

BY CLAUDIA HEMMENT

Andrea Hemment is a lifelong Newton resident. She is a wife, mother, custom dessert maker, former Italian teacher, and a lover of nature, music and literature. Poetry has always fascinated her, and she credits her Lincoln-Eliot school fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Emily Sullivan, for introducing her to the haiku. Her poem was written on a cold and windy night as she dreamed of spring.

BY LISA KING

Lisa has called Newton home for the past 17 years. During the day she is an Account Executive for a technical software company and in her spare time she dances tap and jazz, plays golf and travels as much as possible. She saw the Haiku contest and thought it would be fun to exercise her creative side...most likely due to a dad who appreciated a good limerick.

BY MELINDA GORDON

Melinda Gordon loves learning about other cultures and has long been interested in Japanese haiku, tea ceremonies, Asian-inspired art and landscaping. “My grandfather was an immigrant from a shtetl near Kiev,” she says. “He avoided fighting for the Tzar and instead fought for the US in WWI, stationed in France. Returning home, he started a family and a business of a Five and Dime store. But he always wrote philosophical poetry.” Young Melinda would happily spend hours with him, correcting his spelling and copying his poems, which now reside in a small book and in her mind and heart. As an adult, she has taught art, photography, and video. “However, when a poem pops into my head, I feel like I am channeling my grandfather,” she says.

BY MARIE CLOUTIER

Marie Cloutier is a Massachusetts native now based in New Jersey who writes poetry and creative nonfiction. She has published essays and poetry in many literary magazines and is working on a memoir about complex grief. She shares her haiku twice each week via her free newsletter, trashhaiku.substack.com.

BY MARGARET GELLER

Margaret grew up in Nova Scotia, England, and New England with parents who imparted a love of language, music, and travel. Today, she’s retired after careers in education and information technology—and some amazing trips. Twice widowed, she lives with her elderly cat, Walter, and processes life in 17-syllable chunks.

BY ANNE NYDAM

Anne E.G. Nydam is a writer and artist who, in both words and pictures, seeks to share joy and explore worlds of adventure, wonder, and hope. Her art is relief block printmaking, and she writes short stories, poems, and books. She is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Needham. www.nydamprints.com

BY JOHN HOLGERSON

 John L. Holgerson is the author of three poetry collections: Convictions of the Heart (In Case of Emergency Press, 2021); Unnecessary Tattoo and Other Stains on a Stainless Steel Heart (Finishing Line Press 2016); Broken Borders (Wasteland Press 2012). His poems have appeared in print and online literary journals.

BY CLAUDIA SPRINGER

Claudia Springer is a retired Professor of Film Studies and the author of Electronic Eros: Bodies and Desire in the Postindustrial Age, and James Dean Transfigured: The Many Faces of Rebel Iconography. She co-edited a book on film acting with Julie Levinson of Newton. Claudia is currently writing a novel.

BY RICHARD MATTA

Richard Matta lives in California.

BY LINDA LINDGREN

After 15 years in media and corporate communications at Digital Equipment Corporation and another 30 years as a free-lance business and tech copywriter for small and large companies of all kinds, Linda Lindgren is retired—and trying to find the discipline to work on her own writing projects. She says, "I have always loved Haiku, especially Basho, when he elicits something so familiar, despite the differences across time and geography." During Covid, she and several friends took to creating and sharing haikus from their solitary walks via email.

BY VANDANA PARASHAR

Vandana Parashar is a postgraduate in Microbiology, an educator, and a haiku poet. Her haiku, senryu, and tanka have been published in many esteemed national and international journals and has won many prizes and accolades. Her haiku was also shortlisted for the prestigious Touchstone Award 2020. She is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, “I Am,” was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook, “Alone, I Am Not,” was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022.

BY MAYA MOGHIMI

Maya Moghimi is a third grader at Burr Elementary. She lives in Auburndale with her parents and her younger brother. She enjoys creating many kinds of art—poetry, drawings, cartoons, music, etc.

BY MASHI MORRIS

Mashi Morris is the pen name of Zoe Morris. (Mashi is the name of her dog.)

BY IAN MCGEACHIE

Ian McGeachie is a sixth grader at Brown Middle School in Newton. He enjoys playing soccer, frisbee, and piano.

BY JULIA AND HUGH DUN RAPPAPORT

Julia Dun Rappaport began writing poems shortly after the pandemic hit. Since then, her poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including The Formula, The Weight, and The Telling Room. She won the Longfellow Prize, which honors the best poem by a high school student in Massachusetts. In addition, her visual art has won several local and national competitions. Hugh Dun Rappaport is Julia’s dad. Many years ago, he won a couple of small poetry contests, wrote a Shakespearian sonnet to propose to Julia's mom, published an op-ed in the Hartford Courant, and contributed an article about conjuring to an international trade magazine. Aside from the Haiku Newton contest, his recent writing has consisted of appellate briefs he has submitted to federal judges in his role as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney.

BY CHAD KNUTH

Chad Knuth is a writer of many hats, from poet to food eroticist. He is forever a passionate film photographer, and will forever be a student of life.After earning a BFA in Filmmaking from UNC School of the Arts, Chad spent several years living in both New York City and Los Angeles where he worked in the entertainment industry before returning to his home state of North Carolina to focus on further developing his writing. His poetry has been featured most recently in Digest Magazine.

BY KERRY LOUGHMAN

Kerry Loughman is a retired educator and photographer living in the Boston area. She writes about memory, art, family, and nature in the city, looking for small transient moments of beauty ... or discord. Her work has appeared in Mass Poetry's "The Hard Work of Hope" and "Poem of the Moment," Nixes' Mate, What Rough Beast, The Main Street Rag and Lily Poetry Review.

BY CHRISTINE CARVAJAL

Christine Carvajal grew up in Newton and returned to raise her children. Now retired, she has time to do what she loved as a child: play piano, be outside, talk with her sisters, and write about things she experienced. Fifty years ago, she lay on a frozen pond and watched turtles walk below.

BY MARILYN HALPERIN

Marilyn Halperin was born and raised in Newton. She attended Newton schools, as did her two daughters. She has always loved books and reading, and as a retired preschool and family childcare provider, she has read many books to many children. After knee replacements, she found that wearing pants bothered her knees. In the spring, she always feels liberated taking walks in shorts.

BY SEBASTIAN CHROBAK

Sebastian Chrobak was born in Bielsko-Biała, a beautiful city in southern Poland. His greatest passion is cinema. He appreciates films from all over the world, in particular from Asia (and especially from Taiwan, South Korea and Japan). He is also interested in football (soccer) and since childhood he has been a loyal supporter of FC Barcelona. He began writing haiku in 2020.

BY BINNA CHOI

Binna Choi is a Newton resident.

BY MARY ANN MAYER

Mary Ann Mayer says she is honored to join Haiku Newton in celebrating this playful, potent, spacious form. Her latest work appears in Brilliant Corners: An Anthology of Jazz and Literature. Her recent poetry collection, Kissing the Shuttle – A Lyric History, explores the rise of textile mills, the tuberculosis epidemic, and New England’s pioneering role in public health. Mary Ann lives in Sharon.

BY RICK REIBSTEIN

Richard Reibstein teaches environmental law and policy - for work - and is a poet in his private life. His mom was a poet who published in little magazines. Richard says that sometimes he shares his poems with friends, and sometimes his poems escape his little world and appear in public, as with Haiku Newton.

BY ROBIN MAYER STEIN

 Robin Mayer Stein ‘s poetry and prose have appeared in The Paterson Review, the new renaissance, Persimmon Tree Review and 50 Give or Take. She presents programs about her book, “My Two Cities: A Story of Immigration and Inspiration,” at schools and libraries. She loves hydrangeas, crossword puzzles and swimming.

BY MARIA TOSTI

Maria Tosti is an Italian author from Perugia. Her literary debut was with a multilingual poetry book in 2014. She likes various forms of poetry but she's particularly interested in short poems, in Japanese style, and also likes creating visual poems thanks to her passion for Photography and Drawing. Many of her literary and artistic works have appeared in various national and international literary journals, magazines, blogs, websites and anthologies around the world.

BY JIM KROSSCHELL

Jim Krosschell has published poems and essays in some 85 journals, plus two essay collections: One Man's Maine, which won a Maine Literary Award, and Owls Head Revisited. He lives in Northport, Maine, and Newton, Mass., and volunteers on boards for Coastal Mountains Land Trust and Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

Haiku Newton brought poetry to various parts of Newton in spring and summer 2024.

The 2024 winners were:

Sarah Berkland, Mark Bernstein, Sebastian Chrobak, Ralph Culver, Julia and Hugh Dun Rappaport, Ravi Kiran, Vandana Parashar, Nancy Gagnon, Margaret Geller, Ellie Goldberg, Linda Goldman, Melinda Gordon, Ayan Gupta, Rachel Hershfang, Warren Kaplan, Rowan Koppenheffer, Jim Krosschell, Kerry Loughman, Chris O’Carroll, Rick Reibstein, Anna Tackie, and Anonymous.

A complete set of the winning poems was displayed on signs in front of the Newton Free Library throughout the month of May. A partial set was installed at the John M. Barry Boys and Girls Club of Newton, and a few signs were displayed at Trio and at the Austin Street Plaza in Newtonville.

For the month of June, signs from the library were moved to the First Baptist Church, at 88 Beacon Street (first and second photos). Signs from the Boys and Girls Club were moved to Little Luke's Cafe, 1225 Chestnut Street in Newton Upper Falls (third photo). Signs remained at Trio, 845 Washington Street, and at the Austin Street Plaza in Newtonville.

In early July, signs were installed at the Suzuki Music School in Newton, 1615 Beacon Street, where they remained until mid-September.

If you couldn't view the signs in person, you can enjoy many of the poems below, along with writer bios.

Thank you again to everyone who participated in 2024. You helped people experience the delight and beauty of poetry in unexpected ways.
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BY WARREN KAPLAN

Warren Kaplan is a professor at the BU School of Public Health, teaching and doing research in pharmaceutical policy and “access to medicines." He is also a "recovering patent attorney” who last worked as an attorney at Biogen. Before that, he earned a PhD in ecology, also from BU, but at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole, Mass. “Patent lawyers have to be science geeks from a prior life...,” he says. “I worked in Brazil studying production and consumption of greenhouse gases in the rain forest, among other places. I've written poems and haiku before but I've never won anything.”

BY MARK BERNSTEIN

Mark Bernstein is a grandfather, cook, cyclist, architect, and technical writer who has lived in Newton Centre for 40 years. On a beautiful spring day he noticed Poetry Newton’s call for Haiku. “I was sipping my morning coffee on the front porch,” he explains, “immersed in the quiet I love so much. No irritating machine noise to sour my day!"

BY RALPH CULVER

Ralph Culver's haiku and senryu have been widely published, along with his poetry in longer forms. His latest collection of poems is “A Passable Man” (2021), and he has a new book, “This to This,” forthcoming in 2024. He divides his time between Vermont and central Pennsylvania.