Prize
The 2026 confluence Poetry Prize invites your submission of one Japanese short form poem on the theme of death and dying. We will award $500 in total prize money for the best poems on this theme that expand our capacity for imagining and illuminating this human existence. Submissions are due by May 1, 2026.
Theme
Death is a defining characteristic of life. Across cultures, poetry has been an expression of the human spirit in the face of its end. For some, that end comes too soon and with regret, as in this Japanese death poem (jisei) by Asano Naganori:
風さそう 花よりもなお 我はまた 春の名残を いかにとやせん
kaze sasou hana yori mo nao ware ha mata haru no nagori wo ika ni toyasen
far more than blossoms
pulled by the wind
I too—
and what now
of this unfinished spring?
Perhaps the best known English poem about death, by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, offers a similar take:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
For others, as the Korean poet Lee Hyeonggi in his poem Falling Blossom, there is a beauty that only parting can bring:
how beautiful is the back
of one who knows clearly
it is their time to go
my love that endured
a season of passion in spring
is falling
as blossoms fall everywhere
surrounded by the blessing
that parting brings
now is my time to go
towards the exuberant green
towards the autumn soon to bear fruit
my youth dies like a flower
Still other poets perceive life and death as exquisitely interwoven, as American poet Mary Oliver writes in Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches?
And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?
Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!
To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which is
the mystery, which is death as well as life, and
not be afraid!
To set one's foot in the door of death, and be overcome
with amazement!
Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh taught that we are not born and we do not die, but only continue in new forms—just as water returns to a wave, and the wave returns to water. Perhaps Matsuo Basho, the first haiku master, felt similarly when he wrote his death poem:
旅に病んで 夢は枯れ野を かけめぐる
tabi ni yande yume wa kareno o kakemeguru
falling ill on a journey
my dreams wander
over withered fields
What do death and dying mean to you? How do they shape your life and the life of world? Share your poems with us.
Guidelines
- Submit 1 poem on the theme of death and dying by the May 1, 2026 deadline.
- Your poem must be written in a Japanese short form, broadly understood. For example, you may submit a haiku, tanka, haibun, tanka prose, haiga, tanka art, haiku sequence, rengay, split sequence, renku, or any other form that derives organically from the traditions of haiku or tanka in English, Japanese, or other languages. This includes experimental forms.
- Your poem must be in English. You may submit work originally written in a language other than English; in that case, please include both the original and English translation, and credit the translator.
- Your poem must not have been previously published, including on personal blogs or websites.
- Optional: You may submit an accompanying explanation of how your poem addresses the theme of death and dying (up to 200 words).
- You retain the copyright to your work. By submitting, you confer on the journal and the editors a perpetual, non-exclusive license to publish your work on our website, social media, and in any other form, such as a possible future anthology, audiobook, or other derivative work. There is no fee to submit.
- confluence will pay up to $500 in prize money, to be divided in the editors’ judgments among winning entries. Additional honorable mention entries may also be selected for publication.
If you have any questions, please email us at editor [at] confluencehaiku [dot] com.