Since the Middle Ages in Europe and America, the robin has been one of the most celebrated signs of spring. Her red breast colors the world at the end of winter; his song lights up the air. In short, robin means “joy”. That is why haiku poetry is often contrasted with darker, colder elements. Each of last month’s winning and honorable mention poems found a way to balance the beauty of this favorite songbird with its opposite.
- Airi Zhang he asks if anyone living notices the “quieter mornings” that result from the death of a single robin.
- Gregory Tullock he sees the song of the robin “on such a cold morning”, his breath hangs frozen in the air.
- Valerie Rosenfeld it celebrates the tranquility of a songbird that can go about its business “without even thinking of war”.
Congratulations to everyone! To read more merit poems from past months, visit our Tricycle Haiku Challenge group on Facebook.
You can submit a haiku for the current challenge here.
Spring season Word: Robin
WINNER:
when a robin dies
someone notices
quieter mornings
— Zhang Airi
The winning poem for the March 2026 Tricycle Haiku Challenge reads like a seventeen-syllable code. Quiet spring. Rachel Carson’s 1962 book was the first popular science paper to reveal that pesticide use was leading to widespread animal extinction. In the most memorable part of the book, Carson writes:
In more and more areas of the United States, spring is coming without the return of birds, and early mornings are strangely silent where the beauty of birdsong once filled them. This sudden silencing of bird song, the disappearance of the color, beauty, and interest that they lend to our world, has occurred quickly, insidiously, and imperceptibly to those whose communities have not yet been affected.
In particular, he noted the story of the American robin “as a tragic symbol of the fate of birds—a fate that has already overtaken some species and that threatens all.”
Carson was vilified by leading chemical manufacturers, including DuPont and Monsanto, but the book achieved its goal. The Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970 and DDT was banned two years later. Within two decades, the robin population rebounded greatly. It is currently one of the most common songbirds in North America.
The winning haiku resembles its title Quiet springwhich itself was inspired by another poem. the “The beautiful lady without mercy“, by John Keats, the narrator encounters a knight who has fallen under a fairy spell. As the world around him darkens and cools, the knight loses color and life. The opening stanza reads:
Oh, what can hurt you, knight-at-arms,
To hang around alone and pale?
The sedge has dried up from the lake,
And the birds don’t sing.
Carson used the last two lines as the book’s epigraph to “help explain the title”.
“When a robin dies / does anyone notice / quieter mornings?” At first glance, the question seems poetic. Only after thinking about it do we realize that the poem calls for an answer. Would we notice the absence of a single robin from the soundscape of an early spring morning? He would like to anyone?
I don’t believe for a second that the poet is scolding us from a place of environmental awakening. He seems to realize that no one alive today—or at least no one with a cell phone—has fully awakened to the natural world.
The question at the center of the poem is therefore deeper than it seems. Is there any height left for a species in the digital age? We can feel outrage at the rollback of legislation designed to protect the world from chemicals, microplastics and climate change. But our consciousness is more attuned to the ping of the news than to the morning made “quieter” by the death of a single bird.
TRIBUTES:
the robin sings
on such a cold morning
i see your song
—Gregory Tullock
the backyard robin
going about his day
not thinking about the war
— Valerie Rosenfeld
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You can read about the words of the March season, as well as relevant haiku tips, in last month’s challenge below:
Spring Season Word: “Robin”
give birth to a robin
it means breaking into this world
a piece of the sky
Submit as many haiku as you like for the season term “robin”. Your poems should be written in three lines of 5, 7, or 5 syllables respectively, and should focus on a single moment that just happened.
Be clear in your description and try to limit the topic. Haiku are almost always better if they don’t have too many ideas or images. So focus on the soy of the season* and try to stay close to that.
* REMEMBER: To be eligible for the challenge, your haiku must be 5-7-5 syllables long and contain the word “robin”.
Haiku Tip: Take part in an annual competition!
Founded in 1975 by Kiyoshi and Kiyoko Tokutomi, it is based in California Yuki Teikei Haiku Society It is named after a popular approach to haiku writing in modern Japan. Yuki meaning “with season”, while yours means “having a formal pattern”. Together, the words describe two of the most well-known elements of haiku: the 5-7-5 syllable pattern and the use of seasonal words. Since 1978, the company has annually sponsored an official haiku contest in English, for which the words of the season are assigned in advance.
In addition to your poems submitted for this month’s Tricycle Challenge, to perfect your skills, you might want to review the words of the season at 2026 Kiyoshi and Kiyoko Tokutomi Haiku Memorial Competition and write haiku on anything that resonates with you. Choose your favorites from among these poems, which you can send to the competition, following the submission instructions on the association’s website. This year, the deadline is April 30, and haikus can be submitted by e-mail.
Yuki Teikei’s approach to haiku writing was pioneered by Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959), the most influential haiku teacher of the 20th century. Kyoshi wrote haiku as objective natural history and encouraged others to do so. A “just the facts” approach to poetry has become part of the DNA of modern haiku, and all poets can benefit from learning to write this way. Yuki Teikei’s haiku teach us how to convey subtle thoughts and feelings without saying them directly, relying on the images to speak for themselves.
One note robin: This season’s word editor, Becka Chester, writes: “There are two species of robin, both a type of thrush: the American, which grows to about ten inches long, and its counterpart, the European, a bird a little more than half the size of the other. Both creatures are characterized by their rust-red breasts and are noted for their beautiful, high-pitched notes. It is often the first sound of early spring mornings, while the American robin builds a nest of twigs lined with mud and lays eggs of a bright teal shade, the European makes a nest of a similar style but fills it with feathers and lays whitish eggs.
Tendon Haiku worldWilliam J. Higginson explains the association of both species with spring: “The European robin has been thought of throughout British literature as a spring bird since it comes back to the islands in the spring. The American robin, though it winters on the coast and in southern North America, retains its reputation. It tends to spend the winter in woods, fruit, fields, berries, berries. in the spring to feed on carrion, with worms and insects, when its cheerful song announces the beginning of the mating season that characterizes spring in so many species.”
shut up and listen
I tell myself and it works
the first robin of spring
