National Grammar Day Haiku Contest Winners 2017

The winner of the National Grammar Day Tweeted Haiku Contest submitted a single entry that uses grammar terms in a humorous senryu, a poetry form closely related to haiku.

Senryu follows the haiku form of three lines and 17 onji, usually simplified as syllables. Unlike traditional haiku, a senryu doesn’t necessarily make a statement about nature.

With a pregnant pause
I calculate periods
Here come contractions #Haiku #GrammarDay #GrammarGirl

• — Lills (@LillaryBlinton) March 2, 2017

The winning entry may have come from Sophia Loren. But probably not. We just don’t know.

The poet goes by Lills on Twitter with the handle @LillaryBlinton. The profile photo is a caricature of Sophia Loren. (Ms. Loren, is it really you? Please call.)

The Twitter account was started this week and has a single tweet: the winning haiku.

But the anonymity of the poet didn’t bother the judges, who chose this tweet from approximately 500 contest entries.

Runners Up

Did I mention we had hundreds of entries this year? Being a runner-up is still a huge honor. Congratulations to these fabulous poets:

A semicolon
separates us; but still I
feel subordinate#GrammarDay #Haiku

• — Holly Jones (@TheHollyJones) March 2, 2017

Hyphens have no sound.
Mouthfuls of modifiers
get stacked silently.#GrammarDay

• — Zelc (@Zczartist) February 27, 2017

A modifier.
Seeks squinting relationship.
Ambiguous terms. #GrammarDay #haiku

• — npettengill (@commaspice) March 2, 2017

To fight legalese / Semicolonoscopy / Is recommended. #GrammarDay #haiku

• — Andy Hollandbeck (@4ndyman) February 28, 2017

Honorable Mentions

There is no doubt that
if I were the subjunctive
you would not exist.#GrammarDay

• — Sue Archer (@dbwcomm) March 2, 2017

Between you and I,
I could care fewer about
hypercorrection.#GrammarDay #haiku

• — Stan Carey (@StanCarey) March 2, 2017

Why do the’se writer’s
in’si’st on apo’strophe’s
when an “s” come’s up?#GrammarDay #haiku

• — The YUNiversity (@The_YUNiversity) March 2, 2017

counting syllables
is no way to make sense of
grammar and usage.#haiku #GrammarDay

• — [ pf ]* (@FyfePeter) March 2, 2017

When recalling the
dead, all pronouns should have clear
antedecedents. #GrammarDay #haiku

• — Andy Hollandbeck (@4ndyman) March 1, 2017

You can review all the entries by scrolling back through the hashtag #GrammarDay on Twitter or at the Storify.

A huge thanks to our expert panel of haiku judges:

• Emily Brewster (@eabrewster)  is an associate editor and lexicographer at Merriam-Webster, Inc. As a general definer, she’s covered all kinds of vocabulary, from grammar to finance to slang. Her videos for Merriam-Webster’s website tackle such vexing issues as lie vs. lay and its vs. it’s. She’s also worked as a poetry editor.

• Laura M. Browning (@ellembee) is co-editor-in-chief of The A.V. Club and a board member of the American Copy Editors Society. She once won a poetry award in high school.

• Amorak Huey (@amorak), a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in poetry, is author of the poetry collection Ha Ha Ha Thump (Sundress, 2015) and the chapbooks The Insomniac Circus (Hyacinth Girl, 2014) and A Map of the Farm Three Miles from the End of Happy Hollow Road (Porkbelly, 2016). He teaches writing at Grand Valley State University, before which he spent 14 years as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Florida, Kentucky, and Michigan.

• Tom Freeman (@SnoozeInBrief) is an editor at the Wellcome Trust, a foundation that supports health-related research and publishes longform science stories at mosaicscience.com. He is the winner of the 2016 ACES National Grammar Day Tweeted Haiku Contest.

• Paula Froke (@PaulaFroke) is the AP’s special liaison editor with MSN/Microsoft and lead editor of the AP Stylebook. Her 30-plus years with the AP has included jobs as news editor in Minnesota and Michigan, deputy national editor at headquarters and assistant managing editor/nights on the AP Nerve Center in New York.  She worked on the editing desk at four Olympics.