Taste the Local Difference headman Bill Palladino admits he was a little worried when their local food haiku contest initially inspired just a trickle of entries. But we’re not surprised that ultimately the foodie community came through with more than 750 incarnations of the three-line poems—including about half from area students. “We actually got quite a few submissions from writers with some name recognition,” Bill says. “But the judging was totally blind. To make it fair, I stripped off all the names so the judges had no idea who the writers actually were.”

The local nonprofit Michigan Writers picked the best of the best, and the folks at Blackbird Arts will handprint a limited-run chapbook of the poems for an upcoming fundraiser.

See the full list of Taste the Local Difference Harvest Haiku winners here!

One of our favorites?

Habanero please …
On no, my lips just fell off!
Drinking lots of milk. 


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Photo(s) by Angela Brown