Haiku Competition Winners Announced

By Dunedin Public Libraries | Posted: Friday Sep 18, 2026

Dunedin Public Libraries is delighted to share the winners of the haiku competition held during Love Your Library Week.

There were 57 wonderful entries, including one all the way from Poland! Local writer and critic Claire Lacey kindly read every entry and selected two winners, who will each receive a book voucher.

Claire described Bruce’s winning haiku, from Kew, as a classic haiku with strong imagery:

Shelves like garden beds
Bright books with close-packed leaves
Phonetic Flowers

They also praised Isabel Smith’s haiku for its lovely use of metaphor and imagery:

Kete of knowledge
Bound for all under your roof
Our harvest is full

Congratulations to these talented wordsmiths!

The highly commended entries will be shared next week, so keep an eye out for more haiku celebrating the joy of libraries and books.

A big thank you to everyone who took the time to submit an entry. Claire said it was particularly difficult to choose when they reached the final 10 — a wonderful testament to the quality of the entries. And thank you to Claire for generously giving your time to judge the competition.