Feel the belonging
March twentieth to June first
At the haiku hike
Twenty poems printed onto clear acrylic signs spin like weather vanes in their flower pot homes, lining an almost mile-long path in downtown Tucson. The springtime evening crowds stroll the streets, chatting and glancing at the words floating among pink, purple and red blooms.
“It’s that haiku thing” says a pedestrian to their companion walking past one of the poems.
The haiku thing is Tucson’s annual Haiku Hike. The poetry competition is run by the University of Arizona Poetry Center and the Downtown Tucson Partnership and judged by the city’s Poet Laureate TC Tolbert. This is the event’s sixth iteration. Poets sent in almost 2,000 entries from 34 states and 31 countries.
The winners for 2025, hail from six states and three countries, including Massachusetts and the Philippines.
Each year features a different theme. In 2025, it’s: “Belonging.”
Winner Melisa (Miel) Bohlman-Ramos’ interpretation of belonging is rooted in a patchwork of cultures from her Ecuadorian mother and New Jersey-born father to the Indigenous stewards of Tucson and Mexican-American communities.
para entender
Cuk Ṣon, tienes que ir al“
nopal entre ti
– Melisa (Miel) Bohlman-Ramos
“The gastronomy here. The culture. The food. Mariachi. All these pieces, the buildings, the architecture, the clothing, the celebrations. It’s all still here in small pieces,” she says. “It may be fragmented, but you and I, and anyone else can reach out and touch it and say, ‘This is still here. This is part of something much bigger than me.’”
Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry characterized by its strict syllable structure and brevity. The first and third lines are five syllables. The second is seven. The final poem often embraces the free spirit of nature.
Check out the Haiku Hike
Winning submissions are displayed in downtown Tucson from March 20 to June 1 and are assigned a number linked to a location along the route.
Haruo Shirane writes in New Literary History that “the haiku is suited to a highly global world: a world connected by the internet and social media, in which every reader is a composer.”
Bohlman-Ramos highlights that globality in her interpretation.
Within this Japanese art form, she utilizes Spanish, the O’odham word for Tucson and a play on a Mexican expression — “Nopal en la frente” — a phrase used to describe someone whose Mexican or Indigenous identity is unmistakable, even if they try to deny or distance themselves from it.
“I felt like that expression is a little bit of this quilt that Tucson sits on, and we are so lucky that there’s always a touch point. It is for people from here and is for people who are not from here,” Bohlman-Ramos says. “You don’t have to look that far, walk that much to find some connection to the people’s lands that were here and the cultures that have persisted.”
She felt compelled to reimagine her own sense of belonging through the other poems.
“I had to pause at every one that I saw and was like, ‘Wow, what is this trying to tell me? Like what am I examining? Do I feel a level of belonging in this here, and the answer is yes, but in different ways,’” Bohlman-Ramos says.
She felt especially drawn to Kim Fernandez’s poem about her husband’s binational identity.
Migrant to Green Card,
my soul lives in both places
belonging to none.
– Kim Fernandez
Fernandez wanted to share her husband’s realities.
“He loves both places. Yet, he really feels like he doesn’t belong in either, in a way,” she says. “And I think that’s the experience of many Mexican Americans.”
Poetry is one of the many mediums Fernandez works with. Her repertoire includes painting, photography and acrylics. Before retirement, she was an architect.
“I think of words as a form of art. They can be used as many things — weapons, political statements — but the most fun for me is when they’re used as an art form,” she says. “Whether that’s writing poetry, which I’ve done all my life, or writing a book, which I’ve also done. It’s a part of me.”
Fernandez’ work on a mural and a series of paintings based on the Mexican board game Lotería have kept her too busy to see the hike herself.
Her piece is the first stop on the hike.
Nevaeh Casillas is No. 19, or second to last.
Casillas is also the youngest winner at only 15 years old, but “soon to be sixteen in like six days,” she says. She stuck to natural imagery in her interpretation of belonging.
The flowers bloom shy
But soon begin to realize
They are hydrangeas
– Nevaeh Casillas
She knew she wanted to invoke flowers, but had to do some research before deciding which one. The hydrangea’s striking clusters and variations in patterns stuck with Casillas.
“They’re all mostly identical to one another. Sometimes they could be different colors,” she says. “But it doesn’t really matter if they’re different colors because they all see each other as family, as they bloom and get to know one another.”
Casillas’ win was a joyful accident. It was an extra credit assignment. She didn’t think she’d get picked.
“Whenever I want to express my emotions, I usually write them down, like on paper, and summarize them into poetry,” she says. “It just makes me feel better about myself. Like relieving, off the emotions.”
Shirane writes that while the haiku is “textually autonomous. It functions as a highly social medium.”
As the day draws to a close, the sun sets on Casillas’ poem near the corner of Congress and Stone, marking the end and beginning of the haiku hike. A bouquet of 20 poems for passersby — made by poets from across the world.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
