oiling the rusty chain
for our first ride
the trail

Joseph Pegura

I wiggle my toes
walking on the moon
upside down

Genevieve Breitbach

bare toes
ruthlessly tickle the grass
their turn now

Genevieve Breitbach

laying under a spruce
pine needles fall
on her sewing hand

Tyler Trzcinski

I wiggle my toes
walking on the moon
upside down

laying under a spruce
pine needles fall
on her sewing hand

laying under a spruce
pine needles fall
on her sewing hand

top quarter champion

TOP half Chamption

arms spread wide
             she takes in the wind

bottom quarter champion

arms spread wide
             she takes in the wind

my fingertip erases
a supernova
peek a boo

arms spread wide
             she takes in the wind

man landed
on the moon
why not Venus?

Jacob Hamilton

my fingertip erases
a supernova
peek a boo

Genevieve Breitbach

arms spread wide
             she takes in the wind

Whitney Gray

thunder rumbles
I want to sink into it
a perfectly tuned chord

Marah Kittelson

TOP half champion

arms spread wide
             she takes in the wind

CHAMPION
 

arms spread wide
             she takes in the wind

driving down all
the old back roads
I once knew by heart

BOTTOM half champion

stopped rollercoaster
we follow the tracks
to the beginning

Noah Klumpe

driving down all
the old back roads
I once knew by heart

Joseph Pegura

marshmallows
the closest thing
to clouds

Katherine Viviano

autumn gust
the scarecrow topples
into corn stalks

Natalie Smith

driving down all
the old back roads
I once knew by heart

autumn gust
the scarecrow topples
into corn stalks

driving down all
the old back roads
I once knew by heart

top quarter champion

BOTTOM half champion

driving down all
the old back roads
I once knew by heart

bottom quarter champion

spring cleaning
in the donation box
every doll        but one

improvising dinner
singing scat to the tune
of the refrigerator

spring cleaning
in the donation box
every doll        but one

second hand keeping time
her sigh
and the wind's song

Taryn Pepping

improvising dinner
singing scat to the tune
of the refrigerator

Marah Kittelson

spring cleaning
in the donation box
every doll        but one

Natalie Smith

the only child
dyes Easter eggs
old friends

Cori Grzenia

oiling the rusty chain
for our first ride
the trail

I wiggle my toes
walking on the moon
upside down

bare toes
ruthlessly tickle the grass
their turn now

laying under a spruce
pine needles fall
on her sewing hand

This is my favorite matching set from the Mido matching contest because I think that they both have a very fun and whimsical feeling about them, they have a characteristic picture to me like a Disney movie. They both make a natural thing turn into a more human thing. Alexis

I really enjoyed the comparison of these haikus because of the way that both interact with nature and the pure jaw dropping moment of being in these scenarios. In the first haiku I really enjoyed the reverse of how feet get tickled by grass to giving the child the power to tickle the grass back. It made me think of a picnic and a young boy is just sitting on the edge of a blanket getting his revenge on the grass. I like the simplicity of the use of nature in this haiku as well. In the second haiku, I really enjoyed the repetition of needles in my mind, thank god I am not afraid of them. I can smell the spruce, and feel the needles falling on my body. Then there is a real needle, the strongest and most useful of all. I personally enjoyed the spruce haiku a bit more because I just enjoy the setting much more. Joe

I really liked his match pair of haiku because of the link to nature in each. In both haikus, you can feel the grass and trees and nature surrounding you. In the first, you can feel the cool grass in between your toes. In the second, you can feel the spiky needles surrounding you underneath the spruce. Additionally, in the second haiku, I enjoyed the parallelism between the spruce needles and sewing needles. Whitney

my fingertip erases
a supernova
peek a boo

arms spread wide
             she takes in the wind

arms spread wide
             she takes in the wind

thunder rumbles
I want to sink into it
a perfectly tuned chord

I really like this matched pair haiku. I like how both of them have a sense of control. With the first haiku, the person is able to control the appearance of the supernova. The person determines whether or not it is there. In the second haiku, she is in charge of herself. She is choosing to take in the wind and stand there vulnerable. I also like the idea that she is taking control of her life. She is letting go of something bad and taking on the wind and everything good that is about to come. She is in control now and she is going to do what she wants, starting with being happy. With the first haiku, I really like how it’s simple to read but the meaning is complex. You are controlling something much bigger than yourself. You are playing peek a boo with a supernova, which adds something fun and childish with something amazing and complex. With the second haiku, I like how it’s simple but invokes so much thought and sensory image. You can feel the wind hitting your face while your arms are spread wide. You feel in control and on top of the world. Corrin

Nature seeps into both of these haiku in the most delicious style; I am a sucker for both wind and a good rainstorm, so it comes as no surprise that I enjoyed these haiku most.  I think they make a  nice story together as well, with the perspective shifting from outer (“she”) to inner (“I”) in a nice way. The different lengths also offer alternative perspectives in capturing a moment. What the second haiku needs three lines to say, the earlier haiku can do in two because the information the writer wanted to convey is more easily succinct and not as multi layered as the second. A lovely duo. I especially love the line: “I want to sink into it,” as it perfectly encapsulated how I feel when a good thunder roll strikes my soul with its bass notes. Genevieve

I really enjoyed this match. The freedom that it portrays is really beautiful. I think that it's got a sense of serenity within a storm, of peace that can ground a person in the midst of life's troubles. I think that the spacing for each of these was thought out really well. Not only do the words convey the imagery of standing in a storm, but they look like the things they're portraying, with the arms spread out and the triad of the three lines. These two just work really well together. Marah

I found both of these haiku to represent aspects of nature in a beautifully simple manner. The first haiku represents how I feel on a windy day, especially after a long time of hot humid days. Fresh spring and summer wind feels so good on the skin. I imagine this haiku represents a relaxing wind as opposed to the biting winter wind we have been dealing with. The second haiku is a great representation of sitting on the porch on looking out a back window during a thunderstorm. Thunderstorms have always been something that I have found peaceful and calming even throughout the chaos they usually bring. The low rumble of thunder and the pattering of rain is the music of nature. Both these haiku represent simple everyday things that nature offers us. Tyler

man landed
on the moon
why not Venus?

stopped rollercoaster
we follow the tracks
to the beginning

arms spread wide
             she takes in the wind

thunder rumbles
I want to sink into it
a perfectly tuned chord

I really enjoyed this haiku because it can take place anywhere the reader wants it to. So many different settings can be applied to this haiku. I can also picture the girl or woman just relaxingly opening her arms and taking a deep breath to relax. Another reason I like this haiku is because I commonly find myself just taking in deep breaths when I am outside and find it relaxing. Finally, I like the spacing of the second line because it creates a bit of a longer pause between lines, adding to the effect of the haiku being relaxing. Michael

I enjoy the image this haiku portrays. It is a freeing, open, liberating image. It is a familiar image being that it has been so windy these past weeks. The way that the second line is indented to spread the haiku wide to correspond to the image of the arms spread wide also adds to the haiku. It is simplistic but well written and structured. Grace

my fingertip erases
a supernova
peek a boo

driving down all
the old back roads
I once knew by heart

marshmallows
the closest thing
to clouds

autumn gust
the scarecrow topples
into corn stalks

Even though these two do not match very closely in the way they appear, I like them because they make me think about being back home and hanging with old friends. Sitting around a bonfire looking at stars with them or just driving around town listening to music. I also like the simplicity of both of them, making them peaceful and easy to relate to. I like haiku that remind me of the past with old friends and all of the great times we had. Jacob

With these two paired, I imagine a small child’s play. Maybe it’s an afternoon snack of marshmallows and pretzel sticks, and a little boy is playing more than he is eating. He creates a stickman out of the pretzels and marshmallows, and creates a scene for the man to hang out it; it becomes a cornfield with giant puffy clouds in the sky. But no little boy is content with a peaceful farm scene, so he adds a mighty gust of wind to the little show, and once he is content with the damage, continues to eat his food. Taryn

driving down all
the old back roads
I once knew by heart

autumn gust
the scarecrow topples
into corn stalks

arms spread wide
             she takes in the wind

driving down all
the old back roads
I once knew by heart

I'm really glad these two ended up getting matched after a round of elimination. I feel that they both could be viewed as sadder, heavier topics, but instead choose not to. Both have the potential to be rather dark if you analyze them too deeply, but the fact that the haiku do not forces you to reconsider. Instead of feeling foreign in your own home town, you recognize that life goes on, and your new home is elsewhere. Instead of letting yourself be psyched out by seeing the old scarecrow that was always there slowly crumble and fall, you're at peace with the fact that time goes on and the world around you can't freeze to only appeal to you. If it did, no one else could make their own memories in the same place unique and they would lose their value. Both of these haiku fit well together, especially when you look at it from the perspective of someone returning home after many years away and being bombarded with how much has changed—both within themselves and in the town. Cori

I liked this matching pair because when I imagine the first haiku, I think of a person sticking their body through the sunroof of a car as they are driving. I love doing this in my parent's car and this usually happens on back roads. I get the same feeling from both haiku, of love and something beyond myself. It is a feeling like I am home and it is warm, even though the wind may be cold. Erica

second hand keeping time
her sigh
and the wind's song

improvising dinner
singing scat to the tune
of the refrigerator

spring cleaning
in the donation box
every doll        but one

the only child
dyes Easter eggs
old friends

I like that these two haiku read as though they were thought up on a whim, but the content itself is also about improvising. They’re both about little moments over the course of a normal day that I forget about. I appreciate that--my haiku tend to be about special moments or the most beautiful image I can think of, so these are refreshing. I’ve also caught myself doing both of these things. At first, “the wind’s song” seems like a poetry cliché, but if I focus on it, I can hear melodies made by the changing speed of the wind. Since I am a big nerd, I’ve gotten bored and made up songs that go with the wind, the fridge, the washing machine, the train horn from hell, rain pattering, or whatever else around me is making noise. When paired, they aren’t necessarily a story but they could both be about the same person at two different points during a day that finds music in everything. Natalie

This was my favorite match from this contest because they both give you a sense of being alone, even the haiku talks of an abundance of a certain object (the dolls and the eggs). They both connect the reader to a moment in their past that they most-likely took part in. Whether it be playing with dolls or another toy, the first haiku makes you think of when you were young and used to play with them, then growing up and realizing the past is behind you, yet still not wanting to let go. This is also what the second haiku does, makes you think of when you were younger and dyed easter eggs with your parents, or maybe even alone, and longing to do that again no matter how old you are. In this case, instead of dolls, the eggs are the person’s old friends that they wish they could have back again (like the dolls). Lauren

driving down all
the old back roads
I once knew by heart

spring cleaning
in the donation box
every doll        but one

I loved this pair because of the nostalgia elements that are present in each of them. The doll in the second haiku is reminiscent of the grown up child returning to his or her hometown. There is a certain sense of sadness in each of these but not tragic sadness, more like the kind that you feel when a significantly large change is happening in your life and while it may be a change for the better, it is hard to endure. Viv