About
tinywords is an international, daily magazine of haiku and micropoetry.
Our goal is to publish excellent poetry whose ambitions and effects far outstrip its small size.
We produce approximately four issues per year, each of which are published in serial form, one poem per day, on the web as well as via e-mail and SMS text message. Our current issue is issue 10.2, which began appearing on July 6, 2010. This issue is edited by d. f. tweney, with assistance from Shae Davidson and John Emil Vincent. The background art (the sunflower) is based on a photograph by Matteo Angelino.
The previous issue, issue 10.1, is available as an elegantly-designed, printed book, for just $9.
From October 2000 until June 2008, tinywords published one original haiku nearly every weekday, totalling over 1,500 haiku by more than 300 contributors, including rank beginners as well as some of the leading lights of the haiku world. We’ve also been publishing haiku on Twitter since early 2007.
After a break, tinywords returned to publication on November 30, 2009, with a broader focus on micropoetry and miniature poetry of all kinds, including but not limited to haiku. We will continue to publish one poem per day, most weekdays.
tinywords is listed in the Haiku Society of America’s 2008 Guide to Haiku Publications, which called it the “largest-circulation journal of haiku in English.”
All contents are, except as noted, copyright (c) by the creators named alongside each work.
Want to know more? Read this longish discussion about tinywords between d. f. tweney and norbert blei.
Fun fact: If you text the word haiku to 41411 you’ll get a random haiku from 2000-2008.
Submissions
tinywords accepts submissions only during specified windows.
tinywords is not currently accepting submissions. Our next window to submit will open in late summer, 2010.
We prefer work that has not been previously published in any literary journal, though we’ll occasionally republish poems that have appeared elsewhere. Appearance on Twitter, personal blogs or online poetry discussion forums is no impediment to acceptance.
We will respond quickly to all submissions, so please no simultaneous submissions.
Copyright: Poets published on tinywords retain copyrights to their work. We ask for nonexclusive permission to publish your work on this website, to distribute it via electronic media including email and SMS, and to republish it in print or online collections. Please do not submit work unless you have the rights to it.
We cannot pay for work published in tinywords.
See the listing for tinywords in Duotrope’s Digest.
Other fine daily poetry sites
- Verse Daily
- Poetry Daily
- The Morning Porch (Dave Bonta)
Journals We Like
- Roadrunner (outstanding traditional and experimental haiku)
- Frogpond (the Haiku Society of America’s quarterly)
- The Heron’s Nest (online haiku quarterly)
- Modern Haiku (longstanding, excellent haiku journal)
- Simply Haiku (beautifully curated haiku journal, no longer published)
- Failbetter (progressive literary magazine)
- Jacket (longstanding, high-quality online literary magazine)
- Brevity (very brief nonfiction essays)
- Open Micro (group micropoetry blog)
fine publishers whose books you should purchase
- Bottle Rockets Press
- Cross+Roads Press (Norbert Blei)
- Red Moon Press
support tinywords
Please consider making a contribution to help offset our costs. Your donations can help us stay online and get more people reading haiku! The overwhelming generosity of our readers has covered our annual Web hosting fees for 2006 and 2007, and also helped pay for some much-needed adjustments to our mailing list program in 2007. To all who donated money, THANK YOU.
Click on the button below to make a donation of any amount via PayPal. It’s fast, safe, easy, and you can use a credit card to help keep tinywords going.
The following people have generously supported tinywords with a donation of $1 or more:
Patrons ($50 or more)
Roberta Beary
Ken Morris
Alan Summers
Dirk van Nouhuys
Dean Lawrence
Anonymous (x2)
Supporters ($10-$49)
Jeffrey Winke
Mike Montreuil
You Mon Tsang
Sheyna E. Gifford
Deb McDonald
Suzanne Raymer
Joe Gatto
Scott Richardson
Anonymous (x10)
Friends ($1-$9)
Terrie Leigh Relf
Gerald Hodge
Silenced Press
Anonymous (x9)
trivia
tinywords is published by d. f. tweney. Direct comments or questions to dft at tinywords (dot) com.
This site is powered by WordPress, whose motto is “Code is poetry.” The design is based on a theme by Rob Beschizza. All of the design infelicities and PHP bugs are by d. f. tweney, however. These pages are coming to you from servers maintained by Birdhouse Hosting.
As of 7/4/2010, there are 3,178 subscribers to the tinywords email list.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:19 am
Good luck with your new focus, D.F! We'll be reading!
Joy
joybennett.com
November 12th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Hurrah! Yaaaaaaaaa Jumping up and down for joy! Hurrah! Can you tell I'm happy…
November 12th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I'm not sure how you found my email address, I hadn't heard of tiny words but thank you, I love haiku, and small poems I'll look forward to reading new ones and I'll tell my friends about you.
November 15th, 2009 at 10:06 am
How wonderful! I am ready to read and eager to submit! I will tell my twitter crew about your re-opening.
Sincerely,
Raquel, Founding Editor
Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine
December 1st, 2009 at 3:24 pm
A breath of fresh air…Thank you.
December 8th, 2009 at 8:14 am
It's great to have tinywords back!
Alan
With Words
December 16th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Big ideas
and deep emotions –
Tinywords
December 19th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
White sails
and red roof gables
long for summer skies.
December 19th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
White sails
and red roof gables
long for summer skies.
January 7th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
I am so happy to see more and more attention being paid to haiku on the Internet (or anywhere for that matter). We need more communities such as this to help spread the word about the simple beauty of haiku.
haikusociety.com
January 8th, 2010 at 9:30 am
I’m really enjoying the haiku in my inbox. Thank you for bringing it back!
January 12th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Hi-
Love your site and love getting daily emails from you. A lovely way to brighten my day. I thought you might be interested to know we are running a daily haiku journal called Haiku News (http://www.wayfarergallery.net/haikunews) and I thought it might be something you would include in your daily poetry sites links. Of course, I totally understand if it isn’t – but I thought you might be interested to know about it.
Again – thanks for the great daily poetry.
All the best-
Dick Whyte
January 16th, 2010 at 3:08 am
Black widow
Black gemin her ring
Tiding is the black sea
January 21st, 2010 at 11:59 am
What a daily thrill to see tinywords active again. LOVE the new format!
February 2nd, 2010 at 2:06 pm
HI there,
I have just subscribed to Tinywords, and am wondering how to submit poetry? I’m very much looking forward to being a member of this site!
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:15 pm
How to submit poetry to tinywords: Read our submission guidelines here. http://tinywords.com/about/
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:30 am
The revamped site is exquisite (photo, font, hues) and it is delightful to find a poem a day to enjoy. Thank you.
May 17th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
glad to see you back. when will you accept submissions?
May 17th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Are you including tanka in tw now? Maggie
May 17th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
the guidelines are there but not the email address for sending submissions.
May 18th, 2010 at 4:44 am
From the text of the page above: The next window to submit will be in late Spring 2010.
May 18th, 2010 at 4:45 am
As it says above: tinywords is not currently accepting submissions. The next window to submit will be in late Spring 2010.
May 18th, 2010 at 4:46 am
yes, we have published tanka. Take a look at our archives — here's a link to all the tanka published to date:http://tinywords.com/tag/tanka/
June 30th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
I'm not sure how you found my email address, I hadn't heard of tiny words but thank you, I love haiku, and small poems I'll look forward to reading new ones and I'll tell my friends about you.
+1
July 19th, 2010 at 7:36 am
it’s so hard when it comes to roofing
July 31st, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Great site – but not a clue on how to submit a haiku.
onewe@aeitv.net
August 3rd, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Martin, I can’t agree more. I don’t have a clue either. Maybe they’ll improve how to submit a poem soon. I have several I’d like to share.
August 9th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Martin, if you read the copy above, you'll see that we only accept submissions during certain windows. When we do, we'll announce it on the site here, on the mailing list, and on our Twitter account.
August 9th, 2010 at 11:37 am
As this very page says: "tinywords accepts submissions only during specified windows. tinywords is not currently accepting submissions. Our next window to submit will open in late summer, 2010."
August 15th, 2010 at 8:42 am
some place called Haiku Corner shone a spotlight on you today : http://alturl.com/y2i89
( hope this brings a smile )
August 15th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Thanks for letting us know about that, Gary! Unfortunately I can't view it since it requires a login, and the site has some kind of technical problem that prevents me from creating a new account. Still, it's good to know people are talking about tinywords.
Good to hear from you, btw!
August 29th, 2010 at 11:18 am
I liked your article. Your article gives a lot of insight of love break up. I would be interested on reading extra from your side.
August 30th, 2010 at 7:07 am
How can I submit a short poem here? Thank you.
August 30th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Mariana, please read what I've written above. We're not currently accepting submissions, as this page says. When we are (soon!), there will be instructions here.
August 31st, 2010 at 2:37 am
Finally, I located the information I was searching for. I have been doing research on this subject, and for four days I keep finding web-sites that are supposed to have what I am looking for, only to be discouraged with the lack of what I had to have. I wish I could have located your web-site sooner! I had about 30% of what I needed and your site has that, and the rest of what I need to complete my research. Thank you and keep up the good work!