Some tasks arrive already stamped with futility. You can see the odds stacked against you from the start: the mountain too steep, the lock with no key, the plan that wavers under its own weight. And yet, something in us leans toward the challenge anyway.
There’s a peculiar energy in attempting the impossible. It’s not about winning, not really. It’s about the heartbeat that quickens as you try, the fragile hope that maybe, just maybe, you’ll find a way to bend the rules of reality for a moment. Even failure in that space feels different- sharper, more alive.
For our latest Haiku Feud, we asked poets to step into that space: the mission doomed from the start, the effort that mattered more than the outcome. In just 17 syllables, they captured the grit, the defiance, and the strange beauty of trying anyway.
Here’s the winning haiku that carried the weight of the impossible, and still took flight:
🏆 Winning Haiku by Jodi Kurpiel
Corners fight corners
Soft and silky nemesis
The fitted bed sheet
🥈 Runner-Up by Steven Small
Drowning is easy
When the hands you reach to save
Thirst for company
And because every submission was incredible, we’re sharing them all below.
Haiku Feud Submissions
I could not save you
Though my heart tried it's hardest
Its mission did fail
by Rachel Nascimento
Love your broken self.
A person is a patchwork:
Light enters through cracks.
by Keegan Henrikson
I must give away
everything I think I know
soft words lost feathers
by Kourtney Jones
Season of wildfire
without an extinguisher
Grandma whispers prayer
by Ibrahim Nureni
All girls school no boys
steep hill separating us
together we climb
by Thaís Pérez
Take-off in New York
Just minutes before sunset
—two hours of gold.
by Christy Umberger
Composing haiku
day before nine eleven
is quite challenging.
by Peter Freeman
And for my next trick,
Leaving between drinks and laughs,
An Irish Goodbye
by Jose Rios
Plates on the top shelf
Always slightly out of reach
I am 5 foot 4
by Kristen Semeniak
The only way out
to go in freezing water
and wait for rescue
by Alicia Contreras
Doe eyes veiled with dew.
Pearls cascade. The priest asks twice.
“I can’t marry you.”
by Lisa-Anna Maust
Shadows guard the gate,
steps echo where none return
hope fights against odds.
by London Collins
Join the Next Haiku Feud
Want to see your words featured next time? Follow us on Instagram @haikuists for the next Haiku Feud prompt.
Bring Poetry to Your Next Event
Imagine this same magic live at your event. Our typewriter poets create one-of-a-kind haiku for your guests in real time.
Perfect for:
✨ Weddings
✨ Corporate events
✨ Birthday parties & anniversaries
✨ Brand activations
