Small Heat Challenge Winners

It feels like an appropriate day to share these, as we’re finalizing the Small Heat Challenge winners list with temperatures hovering around 20° (Fahrenheit) in New York.

For this challenge, we asked writers to focus on a small source of warmth and trust the haiku form to hold it. The strongest entries painted a clear picture of both the heat and the cold around it, letting contrast do the work. A mug, a body, a bird, a flicker of flame. Each poem understood scale and knew when to stop.

As always with short-form poetry, we did a light check to confirm each creator is real and active on Vocal. Just a quick review to make sure these moments of winter warmth were written by human hands.

🏆 Winners

Coil by Maura Fisher-Bernstei

This haiku stakes everything on the chewed-up coil, letting its red glow stand in for heat, damage, and need.

Cold Comfort by Pixel Floyd

Cold Comfort allows a brief internal warmth, even as the cold steadily gains ground.

The Match by Caitlin Charlton

By making the warmth abrasive and brief, The Match keeps the focus on sensation rather than comfort.

a sharp coil of scent by Gerry Thibeault

The poem treats warmth as something fragile, held alive by the careful act of cupping the ember from the wind.

A Goldfinch, Puff'd by Gabriel Huizenga

Warmth arrives as a puffed goldfinch, briefly settling a bleak day behind iced glass.

🎖️ Runners-up

• The Tendency by Lamar Wiggins
• Red Eye In the Dark by Darla M Seely
• At The Buena Vista by Tina D. Lopez
• Shower Song by Ava Mack
• "Alone" Was Inspirational, Okay? by Zakariah C. Haggard
• Bus Stop by SUEDE the poet
• The Winter Walk by Amos Glade
• Winter White by Harper Lewis
• Hot spring by Penny Fuller
• Heat Pressed by Kera Hollow
• Human Hearth by Leslie Writes
• Obstinate by D. J. Reddall
• Retreat by Paul Stewart
• Match by Carl Hartman
• Fingers stiff by Mark Francis

🏅 Honorable Mentions

• Red Light by Cali Loria
• Recycling Energy by K.B. Silver
• Bertie by Martina Franklin Poole
• Bustle by Faith M Adam
• One Flame by Ophelia Keane Braeden
• Betrayal of Palms by John R. Godwin
• The Cabin by Justin Black
• Two Hands by Annie Valenti
• Just Breathe by Stacey Mataxis Whitlow (SMW)
• What the Chair Remembers by Shannon Hilson

Check out the latest on Vocal Challenges.