2025 HIGH/COO Chapbook
Competition Winners

Brooks Books is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 High/Coo Chapbook Competition.

This year we had 33 entries in the competition. Many of these manuscripts are worthy of publication, so it was very difficult deciding on publishing three collections. We are grateful for all authors who prepared and submitted such high-quality chapbook manuscripts.

The three collections and award-winning authors (in no particular order) are:

Creek Crossing
by
Valorie Broadhurst Woerdehoff

A Thousand Moons
by
Kevin Valentine

A Call’s Loon
by
Vandana Parashar

Haiku lovers may purchase the 2025 HIGH/COO Chapbooks as a print-copy bundle or digital PDF bundle. A subscription is $30 per year which includes a copy of all three chapbooks. International subscriptions are for PDF copies only.

You may subscribe to the 2025 HIGH/COO Chapbooks series at any time, but orders for individual chapbooks will not be available until after publication later this summer. Each chapbook will be available as a single book purchase at a cost of $15 each plus $5 postage

Creek Crossing
by
Valorie Broadhurst Woerdehoff

           finding the path
           the rocks keep . . .
           creek crossing

                      anniversary
                      the merging steam
                      of two cups

A Thousand Moons
by
Kevin Valentine

           summer moon
           fireflies ignite
           the child inside

                      bait bucket
                      reaching into the moon
                      for a minnow

A Call’s Loon
by
Vandana Parashar

           releasing the breath
           I don't remember holding
           cherry blossoms

                      war zone
                      no one left to decide
                      who is right

Publication date for the 2025 chapbooks will be later this summer. Individual chapbooks may be ordered for $15 each, plus postage, after the publication date.

A subscription bundle of all three may be purchased for a discounted price of $30, plus postage. You may pre-order your subscription bundle below.

2025 Subscription PDF Bundle

2025 HIGH/COO Chapbooks PDF Edition Bundle

International subcribers and/or those who prefer digital copies will receive PDF editions of the three winning chapbooks instead of print editions.

There is no postage charge for this PDF subscription, so annual subscription is $30 USD payable with PayPal:

2025 Subscription Print Bundle

2025 HIGH/COO Chapbooks Print Edition Bundle

USA subcribers may purchase a High/Coo Chapbooks Subscription for all three print-edition chapbooks for $30, plus $5 postage and handling.

You may purchase your chapbooks bundle as a secure transaction through PayPal:

2025 HIGH/COO Chapbooks
Annual Competition

In 2023 Brooks Books launched a new annual High/Coo Chapbooks competition. Each year we invite submissions of chapbook manuscripts by April 1. At least three of the best submissions will be published in our new subscription series of High/Coo Chapbooks. For 2025 Brooks Books selected 3 chapbook award collections for the 2025 subscripiton.

2025 High/Coo Chapbook Awards

2024 High/Coo Chapbook Awards

2023 High/Coo Chapbook Awards

Why do we want to publish these under the “High/Coo Chapbooks” imprint? This new imprint honors our initial venture into publishing, which was a small press magazine: High/Coo: A Quarterly of Short Verse. “High/Coo” is an Americanized version of the Japanese term, both in appearance and conception, which is a recognition that we are promoting a contemporary English literary art.
 
“High/Coo” contains within it several key assumptions about our approach to haiku poetics. With “high” we embrace a poetry seeking to celebrate being alive — the emotions, feelings, perceptions, and enthusiastic realizations that come from being present to the gifts, mysteries, surprises, and insights available in our everyday lives. These are high moments of consciousness. Highlights of being alive. We love poetry that comes from deep contemplation, discovered insight and heartfelt feeling.
 
The “coo” refers to our responses to these high moments of being alive. As poets, we give voice to our responses. We playfully experiment with the “coo” that naturally springs out of these moments of being alive — giving voice to various states of high awareness. Our “coos” often understate or suggest the significance of what is left unsaid. Playful language hints at a state of consciousness. We like playful language!
 
And finally, there is the “/“ between “high” and “coo”. This represents the haiku cut, an essential silence that invites the reader into the space of the poem’s consciousness, language, and images. It is the pause that comes at various points in haiku, senryu, and tanka. A contemplative breath in the middle of things. A door that opens to invite the reader inside to a world of imaginative play.
 
Put these all together, and you get “High/Coo!”

Randy & Shirley Brooks

2025 HIGH/COO Chapbook
Competition Guidelines

Each year the High/Coo Chapbook Competition opens January 1. Readers may subscribe to each year's chapbooks published in the competition. All subscribers are eligible to submit a chapbook of haiku, senryu, or tanka (or a combination of these) for that year's competition.

Guidelines for HIGH/COO Chapbook Submissions:

Submissions to the competition open January 1 and close April 1 each year.

1 - There is no entry fee, but you must be a subscriber to the current year's High/Coo Chapbooks series to enter the competition. Subscription is $30 per year which includes a copy of all award-winning chapbooks published that year. International subscribers will receive PDF editions of the chapbooks.

The chapbooks will be sold separately for $15 per copy, so a subscriber gets a significant discount receiving that year's chapbooks for $30 plus $5 postage. You do not have to submit a chapbook manuscript in the contest to subscribe to the High/Coo Chapbooks series.

If you are a subscriber to High/Coo Chapbooks, you may submit one chapbook manuscript per year.
 
2 - Chapbook manuscripts will be submitted by email to brooksbooks@gmail.com and include the following requirements:
 
     • a book title
     • a short biography of the author (500-1000 words)
     • 30 - 50 haiku, senryu, or tanka (no haibun, no linked verse, no other genres)
     • acknowledgments for previous publication of any poem submitted
     • author’s name, address, email address & publication name preference
     • SUBJECT LINE: HIGHCOO Chapbook Submission

     optional, but not required:

     • a short introduction about your collection
     • a short introduction to your own art of writing haiku or tanka
     • you may submit your chapbook by mail but include an email address for response (no returns)
 
3 - There will be at least three chapbooks published each year. Winning authors will receive 10 copies of their collection and $100. They also will get a 50% author's discount on additional copies of their chapbook.
 
4 - Submissions open January 1 and the closing deadline for submission is April 1. Winning chapbooks will be announced by May 1 and published in early summer.

Randy & Shirley Brooks
6 Madera Court
Taylorville, IL 62568

https://www.brooksbookshaiku.com/chapbooks.html