Love and Poetry are in the air on our island home! This Valentine’s Day be the first to show your love and share your talent in our first ever Haiku writing contest “Valentine’s Verses.” We are looking for the Big Island’s most romantic or love themed original Haiku from among our readers and will be rewarding the aspiring poet with our very special grand prize, a two night stay at the Hilton Waikoloa Village including dinner for two at Sansei Seafood Restaurant and Sushi Bar in the Queen’s Marketplace.

Here are a few basic guidelines for entry:
The Haiku is a traditional Japanese short form poem. Typically it is characterized by its structure, which consists of 17 syllables or sounds (on) arranged in three phrases. In English, the Haiku often appears in three lines to parallel the three phrases of Japanese Haiku. We will use this format for our entries:

• You must successfully upload your original Haiku onto westhawaiitoday.com’s Valentine’s Verses contest platform by noon (12 pm) on February 1, 2012.
• The Haiku must consist of 17 syllables, written in the 5-7-5 format identified in the rules of the Valentine’s Verses contest. Any deviation from this format will result in immediate disqualification, removal from the contest page and prize consideration.
• The Haiku must be an original work by the entrant, no substitutions or previously published materials will be accepted. All entries will undergo a thorough check to ensure that no duplicates are allowed entry.
• The submission must not be defamatory, offensive or obscene nor violate or infringe on any trademark, copyright, publicity, privacy or other rights of any third party.
• All contestants must be residents of the isle of Hawaii (“Big Island”).
• All contestants must be at least 21 years old to enter.

The competition begins on Monday, January 23 with a ten-day entry period in which any willing participant will upload their original Haiku to our contest platform page. The submission period will ends on February 1, 2012 at 12 pm (HST), after which the top ten entries will be selected for the final voting period. Voting will begin on February 5, 2012 when we present the finalists for consideration. For a period of seven days any readers over 13 years of age will be able to log into our contest platform on westhawaiitoday.com to vote for their favorite entry. The Haiku that receives the highest number of votes will be declared the winner and will be rewarded by our sponsors!

The winner will be featured on westhawaiitoday.com and in our West Hawaii Today daily print publication and must be willing to submit to photographs for both. Any participating sponsors may subsequently use the winning Haiku in conjunction with announcements for the purposes of this contest.

For a complete listing of the contest rules click the “Official Rules” tab on our contest page. To find more examples and information on the origins of Haiku poetry click the “What’s a Haiku” tab on our contest page page.