THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE 2025 Colorado Dragon Boat Haiku Contest
Thank You to Everyone Who Joined Our 2025 CDBF Haiku Contest! 🌸
A big thank-you to all the amazing poets who took part in this year’s Colorado Dragon Boat Festival Haiku Contest! We were blown away by the creativity and heart behind over 100 submissions from across the globe.
Some of our local winning poets shared their haiku live on stage at this year’s festival, while guests explored all the entries displayed in our Artist Alley this past September — each poem capturing its own spirit of creativity, community, and celebration that made this showcase so special.
👉 Check out all the submissions and winning haiku below!
Seasoned Voices
(Adult Submissions)
YOUNG VOICES
(K-12 Submissions)
Meet Our Judges and Facilitator
Morgan Liphart - Facilitator, Judge, and Creator of the Haiku Contest
Morgan believes poetry can heal the world. Poetry brings communities together by showing us we are more alike than different, which fosters empathy, compassion, and unity.
Morgan Liphart’s poetry has appeared in anthologies and journals across the US, Canada, Italy, Sweden, Japan, England, and Scotland, such as Oxford University Press’ Literary Imagination, Poetry Scotland, PopShot Quarterly, Santa Fe Literary Review, and The Asahi Shimbun. Her poetry book, Barefoot and Running, was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. She is the host of the writing podcast, The Quiet Alchemist, and the teacher of Poetry Masterclass: Writing and Publishing Powerful Poetry in Journals and Magazines. When she’s not writing, she enjoys her career as an attorney and surrounding herself with nature in the mountains.
She is thrilled to be facilitating this contest to teach about the art of the haiku and uplift the voices of AAPI community in Colorado.
You can find her on Instagram at @mliphart and on TikTok at @thequietalchemistpodcast.
Stacey Shigaya - Judge
Stacey is a Denver native and holds fond memories of attending Obon and the Cherry Blossom Festival in Sakura Square in her youth. Both of her parents were sent to internment camps during World War II and later relocated to Colorado. Due in large part to the experiences that her parents endured, she has great respect and gratitude toward the Japanese American, Metro Denver and Colorado communities.
As a teen, her family moved to Tennessee due to a change in her father’s employment. While there she earned a BS in Human Development and Learning from Christian Brothers University (CBU) and an MS in Counseling and Personnel Services from The University of Memphis. As soon as she completed her graduate degree she moved back to Denver, which she has always considered “home.” Stacey’s varied professional experience includes counseling positions at her alma mater CBU, market research in the automotive and cable industries, office management in the commercial real estate field and affiliate relations with a local Internet services company.
In 2014, Stacey joined Sakura Foundation at its inception. As Program Director she is responsible for the development, management and implementation of projects and programming which fulfill the charitable mission of the Foundation. Programming includes scholarships for graduating high school seniors, a community grant program and the Mirai Generations Leadership Program which encourages young professionals to grow their leadership skills and engage in the JA community for the mutual benefit of their personal satisfaction and the sustained growth of the JA community. Stacey also facilitates the cultural events throughout the year, the largest of which is the Annual Cherry Blossom Festival, held in late June at Sakura Square which is co-presented with Tri-State/Denver Buddhist Temple.
Stacey is also Program Director for Sakura Square LLC, contributing to the strategic planning, human resources services and management of Sakura Square LLC and its current redevelopment project.
Amy Okimoto- Judge
Amy Okimoto is currently the Connections Coordinator at Summit Elementary in Aurora, Colorado where she teaches Socio-Emotional learning and restorative practices to students in kindergarten through fifth grade. She is proud to be a bi-racial Japanese American. She is the co-facilitator for the Asian American Pacific Islander Affinity Group for AAPI teachers in Cherry Creek School District. . She has been working in education for nearly three decades, and has taught in Arizona, Colorado, as well as in Nepal. In addition to her work in Cherry Creek Schools, she serves as an affiliate instructor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, written curriculum for History Colorado Center, and was featured in sections of Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classrooms and in the 2022-2023 edition of Planning to Change the World: A Plan Book for Social Justice Educators. She was among the top seven finalists for the 2025 Colorado Teacher of the Year and is passionate about education and social justice.
Courtney Ozaki-Durgin (She/Her) - Judge
Courtney is an independent creative producer, writer, and artistic director of original narrative-centered immersive theater work at the intersection of folklore, cultural inheritance, and social justice including ZOTTO - A Supernatural Japanese Folktale, which will tour with support from the National Theatre Project in 2026, and Inheritance Kitchen. She is also the founder of the Japanese Arts Network, a national resource supporting and advancing Japanese artists and culture in America.
Courtney holds an MFA in Performing Arts Management from Brooklyn College and BSM from the University of Colorado at Denver's College of Arts and Media. As Creative Producer for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ Off-Center she supported the U.S. and regional premieres of immersive experiences including The Infinite, DARKFIELD, and Monopoly Lifesized: Touring Edition and development workshops for Third Rail Projects, Regan Linton, and Culture House Immersive. She worked as a producer for new and touring dance and opera works with The Joyce Theater and ADH Theatricals in NYC, and is an Executive Board Member of the Western Arts Alliance where she co-founded Hyphen+Asian, a collective AAPINH community space for artists and administrators in the field. Courtney is also Chair of the U.S. Japan Council Mountain Region, and is on the Advisory Board for the Creative Independent Producers Alliance. Motivated by the impetus that an inclusive arts culture leads to a more productive and empathetic society, she was the recipient of the 2024 JEDI Denver Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Arts and Culture and the 2025 Asian American Heroes of Colorado award. She is passionate about the melding of ideas, and the integration and interdependence of arts sectors.
