Victoria commuters (like bees in honey) inspire haiku winner

Thrilled: graphic designer Simon Brake, winner of the Twitter haiku competition
Felix Allen12 April 2012

The winner of a competition to write a haiku about summer in London today revealed the inspiration for his poem - his fellow commuters at Victoria.

Thousands entered the contest to see who could best describe summer in the capital using the traditional Japanese artform, which restricts writers to three lines.

Winner Simon Brake impressed judges, including Yoko Ono, with his evocation of a scene at the station on a sunny day last month. He wrote: "Beneath the morning sun/The city is painted gold/People move like bees through honey."

The competition, in which entries were submitted via online messaging service Twitter, was run by Network Rail and north London arts centre Kings Place. The haikus - typically 17 syllables, although organisers decided to waive the rule - were flashed up on a big screen at King's Cross station.

Mr Brake, 34, said he was "surprised and thrilled" to win. The graphic designer, from Sutton, said: "The competition was a brilliant idea. Commuters tend to dwell on the fact London is big and noisy but you can look out of the window and see something natural and beautiful."

Yoko Ono said: "I was amazed that the level of understanding of the spirit of haiku was so high."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in