Tulsa LitFest Haiku Battle

Watch (and maybe participate yourself) as 16 brave word warriors spar in teams of 4 against one another to win the title of 2025 Tulsa LitFest Haiku Champions. Certain to be a rowdy exchange of saucy puns, artful intimidation, and pedantic syllable counting. No children please.

Hosted by Quinn Carver Johnson.

Quinn Carver Johnson is a poet and teaching artist from Tulsa. They are the author of The Perfect Bastard (Curbstone Books, 2023), a novel-in-verse exploring themes of gender identity, sexuality, and working-class struggle in the colorful, curated world of professional wrestling. The book won the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Poetry.

Carver Johnson’s work has also appeared in World Literature Today, Rappahannock Review, Right Hand Pointing, Cimarron Review, and Red Earth Review. They are the guest services manager of the Bob Dylan Center and a curator for the Woody Guthrie Center, as well as the host of People’s Poetry, a reading series dedicated to protest poetics.

Host or Publisher Tulsa LitFest