UCL's 180th anniversary haiku poem competition

Students and staff are invited to write a haiku poem in English and enter it in a competition, as part of this year's celebratory activities marking the 180th anniversary of UCL's founding.

The deadline for entries is 11 March 2006. First prize: £200, second prize: £150 and third prize: £100.

The haiku poems will be judged by a panel including Professor John Sutherland, UCL's  Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature, Alan Gardner, UCL Union's Sabbatical Officer for Media & Communications and Professor John Martin, Director of UCL's Centre for Cardiovascular Biology & Medicine and author of a book of poems and short stories, 'The Origin of Loneliness'.

For the purposes of this competition, haikus are poems of 17 syllables, in three lines of five, seven and five syllables. Your haiku should relate to UCL or some aspect of it - past, present or future. For example:

• Flaxman Gallery       
• Classical figures                   
• Embrace and fight, whispering
• Cold marble secrets                     
• 
  
• Untitled
• A silver moustache
• So distinguished and so smart
• Will get you real far
• 
  
• Keen Minds   
• Much more than a quad                 
• A precinct we need, no cars               
• To distract keen minds               
• 
  
• JB
• Auto-icon sits
• Utilitarian? Ha!
• Pulls in crowds, all right

Entry indicates your permission for UCL to reproduce your haiku, with an author credit, in print and in electronic form. A selection of entries will appear on the UCL website later in this 180th anniversary year.

To submit your haiku, use the form at the top of the article, and for any further information about the competition, email UCL Haikus.