Twitter members who wish to enter the competition must use their mobile phones to enter and send a 17-syllable poem to Twitter, using the prefix @kingsplace.
The initiative, which was the brainchild of Deliberate PR, has been launched on behalf KingsPlace.co.uk -- a cultural and conference development, where the winning poems will also be posted.
Kay said: "I liked the idea of doing something that combined an old form with a very new form.
"People could do a haiku on the way to work and it's a good way to exercise the brain."
Kay's fellow judge Ono is an avid Tweeter.