Mia Lin, age 12

Full moon hanging
in the silence of the night
cherry blossoms

Mia Lin, age 12
Vancouver, British Columbia

Congratulations on having your haiku selected as the top winner in the youth category in the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival’s 2019 Haiku Invitational contest. How did you first learn about haiku, and how much writing of haiku or other poetry have you done?

I was first introduced to haiku in a writing class at school. Every year, we wrote some haiku and entered them for this contest. Other than haiku, we also wrote many poems and short stories throughout the school year.

What was the inspiration for your winning poem?

Every spring, my family and I would go on walks after dinner. It is always so nice and peaceful walking down streets full of beautiful cherry blossoms. These walks really inspired me to write this haiku.

Describe the moment when you first learned you had won.

When I first learned that I had been chosen for the Best Youth category, I was really excited. I couldn’t believe that they chose my haiku out of the many other entries and couldn’t wait to tell my family. Of course, I was also very pleased to find out which one of my haiku was chosen.

Do you have favourite books or websites relating to haiku that others might benefit from in order to learn haiku as a literary art and to share one’s haiku?

I don’t have a favourite book or website that relates to haiku, but I like to look at many different sites to read other poets’ haiku.

Please tell us more about yourself.

My name is Mia and I am twelve years old. I live in Vancouver, British Columbia after moving from Taiwan about twelve years ago. I love reading, drawing, music, dancing, and travelling.

How does where you live and what you enjoy doing affect the way you write haiku?

I live in a beautiful city that fills with cherry blossoms every spring. This definitely helped me write my haiku.