Winners: Jerry Garcia Haiku Contest

Update (midnight, July 18)

THANK YOU to all of you who posted Jerry Garcia-inspired haiku poetry and who voted in the comment thread below!

Our contest ran on two parallel threads— and —with more than 100 poems and dozens of votes posted to each. You voted in comments and here are the six winners (poems posted at the bottom of this update):

1. Krystal (Grand Prize)
2. Jesse Patrick
3. Chris Noble
4. Karen O’Neil
5. Scott Butler
6. Pat L

Patch will hand off these tickets to our winners between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Wednesday at in Fairfield, and we’d like to invite all of you to stop by for a coffee on us (they have great java). We’re also asking our good pal Andrew, owner of Las Vetas, to put on some Grateful Dead, maybe some Garcia and David Grisman for the morning. So come on down, meet our winners and meet some fellow music lovers as the gets underway!

Here are our winning poems:

Krystal:

Celebrate Jerry
Steal Your Face Right Off Your Head
Forever Grateful

Jesse Patrick:

A four fingered chord
Ignites a roaring chorus.
God must sound like this.

Chris Noble:

Jerry Garcia
Started this movement of love
Vibes will carry on

Karen O’Neil:

Strangers stop strangers
Music uniting, Seaside
His ripple lives on

Scott Butler:

Grateful for Jerry
Started this movement of love
Vibes will carry on

Pat L:

Garcia has left
but we dead heads go Furthur
Jerry forever

Thanks again, everyone—enjoy the festival!

Original Post (July 15)

On Thursday, July 19, more than 20,000 music lovers will travel to Bridgeport's Seaside Park to attend. The festival was founded in 1995 by Weston resident Ken Hays to celebrate the life of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia.

Patch is pleased to announce a partnership with the Vibes, and we're giving away ticket packages to six lucky winners who yearn to put on their dancing shoes.

To enter, just (full rules attached as PDF):

1. Write a Jerry Garcia-inspired haiku (structure outlined below)
2. Post it in the comments thread below

To vote up the winners, just:

1. Find your favorite haiku in the comments
2. Hit "Reply" just below that haiku and let us know you're voting for it

Haiku-posting and voting close at midnight Wednesday.

Five winners will receive four tickets to Friday, Saturday and Sunday's festivities, while the grand prize winner will receive two camping passes to the event which includes admittance Thursday night as well. Patch will meet the winners in Fairfield on Wednesday, July 18 to hand off the tickets.

Good luck, and we hope to see you boogying on the beach! 

A haiku is an unrhymed, three-line poem with this structure:

• Line 1: 5 syllables
• Line 2: 7 syllables
• Line 3: 5 syllables

Here's the concert's official site. Headliners this summer include:

• Bob Weir & Bruce Hornsby with special guest Branford Marsalis
• Primus
• Phil Lesh & Friends