Submissions to tinywords 23.1 — and a new writing prompt

photo of a fuzzy moth hovering next to purple lavender blossoms

tinywords 22.2 has now ended with Kerry J. Heckman’s “telescope images”. The submission window for tinywords 23.1 will open on February 1st and remain open until the end of the month. Sending regular submissions to tinywords is a simple two-step process:

1 – Just check out our guidelines at https://tinywords.com/about/ and then

2 – Click on this link to submit your work: https://tinywords.com/submit/

We’ll accept submissions from Feb. 1 through Feb. 28,  2023. Please send us your small poems, haiga, or brief haibun to be considered for our next issue, which will start in March or April.

While we work on the next issue, how about a new writing prompt?

Our photo prompt image, above, is an award-winning close-up by Thorsten Denhard. Take a look at this alien-like being: the macroglossom stellatarum in flight near lavender. Better known as a hummingbird hawk-moth, this insect’s movement perfectly echoes the flight of an actual hummingbird. A fascinating and cool little creature that really holds your attention when you see one hovering like it does. A veritable poem in and of itself. We hope it inspires you to create one of your own. Or maybe two. Be sure to share them with us.

Leave your best efforts in response to the photo prompt in the comment box below and the tinywords editorial team will share the best of the best at the start of tinywords 23.1, due out in late March, 2023.

Thanks again for dropping by. And, as always, good writing.

Be well,

The Editors

78 Responses

  1. Michelle V. Alkerton Says:

    garden party
    heartbeat racing
    our eyes meet
    _____

    hostess greets us
    sweet scent lingering
    at shoulder height
    _____

    Stay inspired!

  2. Lynn Johnson Says:

    Singed flame
    Hovering Destroyer
    Innocent song of blossoms

  3. Alan Summers Says:

    purple haze the smoke dwindles into moonrise

  4. Mona Bedi Says:

    evolution—
    how similar we are
    yet dissimilar

    summer day
    I make friends
    with a stranger

  5. Angele Ellis Says:

    stilled
    against blurred lavender
    on the horns of a mystery

    beating furiously
    to hover upright
    o my heart

  6. Eavo1nka Ettinger Says:

    spring fling
    unable to resist
    the smell of purple
    ***
    faster than
    the speed of light
    your identity

  7. Eavonka Ettinger Says:

    spring fling
    unable to resist
    the smell of purple
    ***
    faster than
    the speed of light
    your identity

  8. Sam Bateman Says:

    taking me back to childhood wonder a hummingbird moth

  9. d. f. tweney Says:

    With a flash and a flicker
    a hummingbird hovers
    over summer

    –Sylvia Forges-Ryan
    (posted on her behalf)

  10. Jeffrey Ferrara Says:

    shared wings

    a slow shutter

    captures the blur

  11. malinthap Says:

    violet dawn
    you hover the waters
    in my heart

    —-

    a flicker of yearning
    for my lonesome hours
    who can tell apart
    these tears
    from the dew

  12. martin1223 Says:

    flitting about the lavender this last day of September

  13. Ellis Clay Says:

    snapshot—
    in the blink of an eye
    only the lavender

  14. Diane Revell Says:

    Summer Songs

    Tiptoeing among
    lavender and alyssum
    Bees hum summer songs.

    Fellow pollinator
    Hummingbird impersonator,
    Hawk Moth
    Hovers among scents of summer
    Buzzing its own song.

  15. Laurie Greer Says:

    lavender…
    finding the soft spot
    in his heart

  16. Laurie Greer Says:

    lavender…
    the gossamer scent
    hovering in the air

  17. Laurie Greer Says:

    proboscis…
    the wishes and whorls
    of a life line

  18. Magyar Says:

    steps in time's shadow
    strides through histories follow
    eyes nod to the past

    __Good or bad of the past… both teach. _m

  19. Sam Bateman Says:

    long-stemmed flowers
    a hummingbird moth's
    unfurling proboscis

  20. Helen Buckingham Says:

    'hummingbird hawk-moth'
    my mouth could do with that tongue
    for it to trip off

  21. katy Says:

    soft blur of
    hovering colour
    pollinates

  22. Helen Buckingham Says:

    hawk-moth
    the eye of an unfurling
    tongue

  23. Helen Buckingham Says:

    moth art
    the Daliesque twirl of its tongue
    midflight

  24. Bridget Magee Says:

    purple patch attracts
    bird doppelganger
    good omen

    fragrant bouquet
    moth to
    royal flame

  25. Olivier Schopfer Says:

    overwhelming heat
    from flower to flower
    the moth’s wings

  26. Laurie Greer Says:

    the hum of summer sunshine…
    lavender drops dance
    on the head of a pin

  27. Kelly Sargent Says:

    spring hummingbird
    a haiku
    in its beak

  28. Kelly Sargent Says:

    Mom’s lilac grove
    a hummingbird and I
    hum

  29. Kelly Sargent Says:

    trumpet honeysuckle
    a hummingbird
    chirps

  30. Kelly Sargent Says:

    morning coral bells
    hummingbirds
    commune

  31. Rich Schilling Says:

    lavender breeze
    a hawk-moth
    fanning the fragrance

  32. Edward Huddleston Says:

    moth proboscis
    a spiraling galaxy
    of lavender

    hawk-moth
    just humming along
    the lavender

  33. Elisa Theriana Says:

    lavender
    grandma teaches me
    to repel the boys

  34. Kelly Sargent Says:

    hawk-moth twittering between myself and my mask echoes

  35. Barbara Kaufmann Says:

    scent of lavender
    summer flies by
    in a blur

  36. Keith Evetts Says:

    sweetness the whir of burning wings

    humming
    hawk
    bird
    moth
    what it's about

    icarus the urge to pollinate

    hawk moth
    the scent of sunlight
    in lavender

  37. ingridbaluchi Says:

    dusk moth
    in dying light
    that deep whir of wings

  38. Sam Bateman Says:

    a hummingbird moth making the rounds flower baskets

  39. ingridbaluchi Says:

    lavender sachets—
    leaving the last bush
    for my friends

  40. Rich Schilling Says:

    grandma's garden
    long after she's gone
    the scent of lavender

  41. ingridbaluchi Says:

    Seventy beats per second
    my wings when I see you
    my love

  42. Sam Bateman Says:

    hawk-moth
    humming through
    the fragrance of flowers

  43. ingridbaluchi Says:

    menacing
    my bird-like eye
    as I get on with business

  44. Helen Buckingham Says:

    shapeshifter moon trails lavender through the gloaming

  45. Cynthia Anderson Says:

    lavender blossoms
    a hummingbird hawk-moth
    uncurls its tongue

    ***

    star-crossed lovers
    lavender blossom meets
    hummingbird hawk-moth

    ***

    fall twilight a flash mob of hummingbird moths

    (this last one is based on the hummingbird moths where I live)

  46. Elizabeth McM-T Says:

    alien spacecraft
    our two
    hearts

  47. Magyar Says:

    paths across the bay
    each foot step writes our name
    tides erase errors

    __Nature should never be set aside; that surge of tides… always teaches and honors civility. _m

  48. Tracy Davidson Says:

    a hummingbird
    in disguise
    the hawk moth
    unfurls
    his not-a-tongue tongue

  49. Helen Buckingham Says:

    lit match
    lavender
    catches

  50. Rich Schilling Says:

    mingling with the bee buzz the hawk moth’s hum

  51. Marilyn Ashbaugh Says:

    lavender spirals the moth’s proboscis

  52. Alan Summers Says:

    failing sight the color purple across the braille

  53. Magyar Says:

    gold wings song
    such blossoms in flutter
    a violet violin

    __In each vision, that imagined sight may change. _m

  54. Walker Says:

    as in the photo

  55. Marcie Wessels Says:

    dark garden bed
    where we wait
    for lavender to bloom

  56. Keith Evetts Says:

    flickers of summer hum those early years

    summers hovering a pause in hostilities

    far from languid moth googling the lavandula

    Provence awaiting another van Gogh

  57. Jeffrey Ferrara Says:

    in spring the backyard growing bigger

  58. Srini Says:

    midday sun
    a hawk-moth homes in
    on its shadow

  59. Srini Says:

    lavender sky…
    the scent of summers
    past

  60. Kim Klugh Says:

    the blur of a hawk-moth
    humming among
    notes of lavender

    ***
    the hum of the hawk-moth
    probing the notes
    of lavender

    ***
    hummingbird hawk-moth
    I do a double take
    in the blur of lavender

  61. dl mattila Says:

    Tinder feed
    the hovering hawk-moth
    swipes right

  62. Helen Buckingham Says:

    lavender haze
    moth to moth
    resuscitation

  63. kalaramesh Says:

    the curls what wind does to her hair

  64. kalaramesh Says:

    .

    hum in the forest
    a linchpin
    uniting my being

    .

  65. Helen Buckingham Says:

    the whirr of a hawk-moth lavender fan

  66. martin1223 Says:

    a

    sphinx

    moth

    hovering

    autumnal

    equinox

  67. martin1223 Says:

    sphinx moth the dusk of autumnal equinox

  68. kathabela Says:

    mother's lavender
    the curlicue signature
    of her love

    ****
    passion vine the uncoiling proboscis of her desire

  69. Srini Says:

    zoomed out
    the problem offers
    a solution

  70. Mihan Han Says:

    lavender photos
    pin humming hawk-moths in flight
    unfettered from time

  71. Mihan Han Says:

    lavender bouquet
    nerves humming before the date
    a hawk-moth in flight

    (sorry for the double post. Should've just included this in my first post)

  72. williamgottlieb Says:

    the light and hairy
    predators in my dreams…
    hawk-moth

  73. Alan Summers Says:

    why purple is a forbidden colour dripping from lashes

  74. Jeffrey Ferrara Says:

    not a fence

    but a boundary

    with blooms reaching out

  75. Magyar Says:

    such blooming boundries
    enhance each walker's new sight
    nature's Earth compass

    __Jeffrey, your "blooms reaching out

  76. martin1223 Says:

    moment

    in a field of lavender

    Bakhmut

  77. Marion Clarke Says:

    wrought iron gate
    something stirs
    the scent of purple

  78. tinywords: Welcome to tinywords 23.1 Says:

    […] Congratulations to our writing prompt winners Sam Bateman, Helen Buckingham, Rich Schilling, and Alan Summers whose poems appear below. Once again final choices were difficult due to the abundance of good responses. We have a few more favorites than usual. But that’s a good thing. Please be sure to scroll through and enjoy all the poems offered in response to our hummingbird hawk moth prompt. […]

Leave a Reply