Submissions to TINYWORDS 21.1 and a New Writing Prompt

mostly monochrome photo of the interior of a ruined chateau, with dramatic sunbeams illuminating part of it

Winter is still in full swing here in the northern hemisphere but spring is on the way.? TINYWORDS 20.2?has now ended with Victor Ortiz?s haiku ?last light.” The submission window for TINYWORDS?21.1?opened on February 1st, so if you haven?t yet, send us your small poems, haiga, or brief haibun to be considered for our next issue: TINYWORDS?21.1.

Sending work to TINYWORDS is a simple two-step process. Just check out our?Guidelines?and click on the?Submissions Page?from Feb. 1 through Feb. 28th, 2021. One month window, as usual.

To keep things lively while we work on the new issue, we present a new writing prompt. This image from UK photographer?Matt Emmett, taken in Southern Belgium in 2015 is called “Ruined Chateau.” You can check out more of his work in his recent book called Forgotten Heritage; Rediscovering Forgotten Places and on his website here.?In the meantime, we hope this vision of grandeur even in decay sparks a poem or two. Maybe one of hope for the future.

Be sure to share it with us. Leave your best efforts in the comment box below (click here if you don’t see the comments below) and the TINYWORDS editorial team will share the best of the best in TINYWORDS 21.1, due out in late March, 2021.

Thanks again for dropping by. We look forward to reading what you?have?to say.

 

 

62 Responses

  1. Ronald K. Craig Says:

    winter . . .
    just around the corner
    spring cleaning

  2. SE Gifford Says:

    Resplendent decay –
    sunlight waltzes through
    the empty ballroom

  3. Helen Buckingham Says:

    spider sanctuary
    spinning me
    a new halo

  4. martin1223 Says:

    winter light
    through the forgotten ruins
    field mice

  5. Alan Summers Says:

    summer picnic
    the portrait of Dorian Gray
    goes al fresco

    Alan Summers

    Note:
    In Italian, the expression al fresco usually refers to spending time in jail.
    Il scrittore è stato preso e messo al fresco ? The writer was caught and sent to prison.
    Oscar Wilde wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray.

  6. Alan Summers Says:

    Michaelmas flowers we hide and talk with faerie folk

    Alan Summers

    Season: September (Autumn)

  7. Marilyn Ashbaugh Says:

    last light
    a barefoot boy
    finds a new home

  8. Laurie Greer Says:

    clouds of dust…
    how one dream gives way
    to the next

  9. Laurie Greer Says:

    midnight
    the grand ballroom
    again a dusty workshop

  10. Sylvia Forges-Ryan Says:

    Long abandoned home
    collapsing into itself—
    still warmed by the light

  11. Peggy Says:

    patriarchal decay–
    sunlight stirs
    the old ghosts

  12. Helen Buckingham Says:

    daybed
    no rest
    for the incubus

  13. Tate Lewis-Carroll Says:

    dust
    from another's life
    falls down

  14. Tate Lewis-Carroll Says:

    Let's hope they bought insurance.

  15. Guy Stephenson Says:

    shadows reeled
    the centre did not hold?
    save innocence

  16. Pasquale Asprea Says:

    priest song

    one day in january

    my father

  17. Andy Burkhart Says:

    dust devils
    the House of Usher
    implodes

  18. Julia Guzman Says:

    last summer days –
    the flight of teros
    darkening the sky

  19. Marietta McGregor Says:

    as if time segues into dust faded light

  20. Marietta McGregor Says:

    sky-hung hall…
    daylight banishes
    a barn owl

  21. Laurie Greer Says:

    house of cards–
    time to reshuffle
    the deck

  22. Gregory Longenecker Says:

    snowfall

    talk of raiding the stores

    after the last bomb

  23. Sam Bateman Says:

    house of ghosts
    mouse droppings
    and spider webs

  24. Rich Schilling Says:

    sweeping
    for bugs
    the new administration

  25. Taofeek Ayeyemi Says:

    war moon ?
    a locale recounts the cost
    of the pandemic

    *

    ruined chateau . . .
    the last charged wineglass
    glistening in the sun ray

    *

    spring cleaning . . .
    a tailless gecko enters
    the sofa

  26. Marietta McGregor Says:

    stash of coins
    in a marble jar
    what we leave

  27. Maria Teresa Piras Says:

    dust –
    all that
    is ours

  28. Maria Teresa Piras Says:

    an old diary –
    under the dust of time
    the heart beats

  29. Helen Buckingham Says:

    Ah, Monsieur Poirot!
    …better late
    as they say

  30. Peter Newton Says:

    mid-life
    at home
    in my own skin

  31. Maria Teresa Sisti Says:

    creak –
    suspended in silence
    old quarrels

  32. Rich Schilling Says:

    first light
    our new home full of
    second thoughts

  33. Barbara Kaufmann Says:

    the moment
    all else fails
    sunbeams

  34. Helen Buckingham Says:

    palace moat
    the last in a line
    of mute swans

  35. Claudette Russell Says:

    sunlight
    discovering
    long lost secrets

  36. Claudette Russell Says:

    memories
    sometimes long shadows
    other times rays of light

  37. Claudette Russell Says:

    trying to repair
    so many layers
    of our friendship

  38. Tracy Davidson Says:

    dappled sunlight
    finding a darkened corner
    to curl up in

  39. Tracy Davidson Says:

    after the war
    the chateau and I
    equally shell-shocked

  40. Wiesaw Karliski Says:

    breath of spring
    the first butterflies wander
    through my room

  41. Claudette Russell Says:

    sunlight
    revealing
    possibility

  42. Alan S. Bridges Says:

    in shafts
    of light
    the shift
    of time

  43. David H. Rosen Says:

    cancer…
    death &
    rebirth

  44. Laurie Greer Says:

    abandoned nest
    the hearts
    no longer in it

  45. ghittmeyer Says:

    dust and cobwebs
    the sun sets
    on abandoned ideals

  46. Jacquie Pearce Says:

    dancing dust motes . . .
    all that remains
    of the music we shared

  47. Marion Clarke Says:

    cathedral of stars . . .

    a vagrant thanks God

  48. Marion Clarke Says:

    derelict castle

    the stray declares

    himself king

  49. Sylvia Forges-Ryan Says:

    abandoned
    the chateau collapses
    into itself

  50. Aniket Nikhade Says:

    Remains of the remain still remaining in the present.
    All that happened in the past,
    now haunts me in present.
    Time flies.
    Memories fade.

    Over a period of time,
    it's realized
    that a thing of past
    is a thing of the past.

    Better to be what you are
    Also otherwise future remains uncertain.

  51. Marion Clarke Says:

    winter light returning dust to dust

  52. Amin Jack Pdziwiater Says:

    inner thrill
    of mountings
    toilet flushed

  53. Sam Bateman Says:

    derelict mansion
    the stories growing
    wilder every year

  54. Helen Buckingham Says:

    Miss Havisham wakes
    to taste the coffee–
    hug each ray of sun

  55. Magyar Says:

    history
    borders each days sun
    times dust

  56. dl mattila Says:

    faded script
    memories crumble
    in my hands

  57. Veronika Zora Novak Says:

    apparitions the colours i once knew

  58. aminanimator Says:

    lifting eyelids
    starts the system protocol
    video online

  59. Autumn Noelle Hall Says:

    all the -isms
    which divide a house
    against itself

    Autumn Noelle Hall

  60. magyar Says:

    each thought a new sneeze
    searching through such ancient dust
    yester's mmory

  61. Gillena Cox Says:

    in the rubble
    arrogance of an era
    things set to the past

  62. tinywords: Welcome to tinywords 21.1 Says:

    […] Gottlieb Cohen and Rich Schilling who open the new issue with their winning poems inspired by our photo prompt, “Ruined Chateau,” by Matt Emmett. Their poems are featured below. As always, many fine offerings make the archive well worth […]

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