By Justin Fujioka

Does a scenic ferry ride get your brain waves going? Now is the time to take a sail on one of our vessels with a pen, paper, and a poetic mind. Get inspired for our ferry haiku cover contest on Twitter!

We’re looking for a traditional haiku about the Washington State Ferries experience. The winning poem will be featured on the cover of our Summer 2018 Sailing Schedule!

How to enter
All you have to do is follow @wsferries on Twitter, then tweet your haiku between noon Monday, March 5, and noon Friday, March 9, 2018. Be sure to include the hashtag #WSFHaiku. All members of the public, except WSDOT employees and contractors, are eligible and invited to participate. No fare purchase is required.

Haiku requirements and contest rules
In addition to the submission qualifications listed above, each entrant must follow these requirements and rules:

• One haiku per tweet.
• Poem must be a traditional haiku with five (5) syllables on the first line, seven (7) on the second and five (5) on the third.
• Haiku must be about the Washington State Ferries experience.
• Poem must be the sole, original work of the entrant.
• An entry may be disqualified if it has been previously published or won awards or competitions.
• Each contestant may submit up to three haikus. Any additional haikus received after the first three are not eligible.
• By entering, all submitters grant us the right to use their poems for marketing and communication purposes.
• Do not send your haiku via direct message on Twitter.

Selecting a winner
A panel of judges will select up to 25 entries based on relevance to the WSF experience. Those submissions will be sent to Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna, who will choose three finalists based on creativity, originality, content and writing. Decisions of the judges are subjective, final, and cannot be appealed.

The finalists’ poems will be posted on the @wsferries Twitter page at noon Monday, March 19. The haiku with the most likes at noon Friday, March 23, will be named the winner.

We will then work with the winner to find a photo to serve as a background for their haiku. The work of art will be featured on our 2018 summer schedules!