About Hilltop Haiku
Hilltop Haiku is a project by Michael Dylan Welch, with the support of the Sammamish Arts Commission, to bring plateau-themed haiku poetry to residents of Sammamish, Washington in a novel way. Selected haiku poems appear along main Sammamish roadways, to be read sequentially one line at a time. They are inspired by Burma-Shave signs that appeared across the United States from the 1920s to the 1960s, and also inspired by the similar Hiway Haiku installations by the north ferry terminal on Vashon Island (see this 2013 Beachcomber newspaper report). If you’re a Sammamish resident or if you visit or work in Sammamish, you are invited to share your own haiku, selections of which are presented on this website. If you have comments or questions, please contact Michael Dylan Welch.
Michael Dylan Welch has lived in Sammamish, Washington since January of 2003. He likes to be surprised by empathy and gratitude in haiku and has been active with its inspiring worldwide community for more than forty years. He founded his press, Press Here, in 1989, edited the haiku journal Woodnotes from 1989 to 1997, and Tundra: The Journal of the Short Poem from 1998 to 2001. He is currently coediting First Frost. Michael cofounded the Haiku North America conference in 1991 and the American Haiku Archives in 1996, and founded the Tanka Society of America in 2000, the Seabeck Haiku Getaway in 2008, and National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo, held every February) in 2010. He is also web manager for Haiku Northwest, which meets monthly in the greater Seattle area. Michael has won first place in numerous haiku contests, published numerous books, and his poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in hundreds of publications, translated into more than twenty languages. He is also president of the Redmond Association of Spokenword and curator of SoulFood Poetry Night. Michael’s website, devoted mostly to haiku, is Graceguts.
crackling beach fire—
we hum in place of words
we can’t recall
