¹û¶³Ó°Ôº

First prize (£200) - Bob Barber (¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Physics & Astronomy)

Housman you must weep
The tree that you loved is gone
And we the poorer

Second prizeÌý (£150) - Professor John Klier (¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Hebrew & Jewish Studies)

New nano-tech joint -
Should we not have expected
Something much smaller?

Third prize (£100) - Hannah Hudson (¹û¶³Ó°Ôº English Language & Literature)

How to make your name
Mr Bentham taught us well -
Sit still and get stuffed

The haiku poems were judged by a panel comprising Professor John Sutherland, ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº's Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature, Alan Gardner, ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Union's Sabbatical Officer for Media & Communications, and Professor John Martin, Director of ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº's Centre for Cardiovascular Biology & Medicine and author of a book of poems and short stories, 'The Origin of Loneliness'.

On behalf of the judges, Alan said: "We felt that the standard of the entries was very high, with sparkling wit and subtle poetry characterising the best examples. For my own part, I felt our winner was blessed with a haunting profundity, befitting its evocation of our own great poet, A E Housman, whilst our pick for second was perhaps one of the funniest and most succinct of all the haikus. Third place goes to a study of ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº's great benefactor, Mr JB, and his own special recipe for success. Our task of picking the winners became remarkably difficult, only countered by being equally enjoyable!"

Professor Martin added: "The winner is a recognition of the inevitable sadness at the passage of time linked with change in the physical world. With poignancy it links us to Housman. It carries a regret for the past that the College must address in its advance to the future. I hope that non-humanities students may ask who was Housman, discovering his place in the College and his eminence as a poet. The haiku is centrally oriented: on the Quad, the trees in it and the renewal of the Slade. Most of ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº may not have noticed the removal of the Indian bean tree. The staff and students in the biomedical institutes should perhaps, through this haiku, be encouraged to come and look."

• Links:
• Highly commended haikus