Submissions to tinywords 25.1 — and a new writing prompt

Black and white photo of a black, leafless tree in silhouette against a field of white snow. A single swing hangs from one of the branches.

It’s that time again. tinywords 24.2 has now ended with Elisa Theriana’s “until we meet again”.  We will be on pause until the next issue, 25.1, begins late in March.

The submission window for tinywords 25.1 opens on February 1st and closes on February 28th, 2025. Sending regular submissions to tinywords is a simple two-step process. Just check out our guidelines and send in your work using the form on the Submissions Page after the window opens on February 1st.  Please send us your haiku, tanka, small poems, haiga, or brief haibun to be considered for our next issue: tinywords 25.1. Our 25th year!

To keep things interesting while we work on the next issue, we present a new writing prompt: A starkly beautiful photo of a winter scene in black and white that seems to speak of solitude, memory and perhaps longing. What do you see? We hope the image will inspire you to write a tiny poem or two. Please 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 25.1, due out in late March, 2025.

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

 

Be well,

The editors

 

28 Responses

  1. LYNNE REES Says:

    that’s such a beautiful photo <3

    ~
    deep winter
    my memories swing
    between light and dark

    ~

  2. martin gottlieb cohen Says:

    memory the silence of a first snow

  3. Cendrine Marrouat Says:

    Hello there!

    Here is my haiku:

    “Winter light
    twenty-five years ago
    our swing.”

    Cendrine Marrouat

  4. Claudette Russell Says:

    black and white photo
    setting colorful memories
    in motion

  5. Claudette Russell Says:

    a motionless swing
    above the untouched snow
    waiting for the joy of children

  6. Catherine Donnelly Says:

    Like the memories
    from my childhood, blanketed
    over with snowfall

  7. Jacquie Says:

    winter silence
    that place I go
    to find myself

  8. Catherine Donnelly Says:

    Memories frozen
    so deep that the impending
    thaw cannot unearth

  9. Olivier Schopfer Says:

    those days
    when we had wings
    school swing

  10. Nancy Rapp Says:

    the swing
    waits for the baby
    winter will thaw
    into spring

  11. Laurie Greer Says:

    winter blues swing low

  12. Eavonka Ettinger Says:

    chiaroscuro
    what lies beneath
    the shadows

  13. Ray Caligiuri Says:

    heartland solitude abandoned

  14. Nan Bagwell Payne Says:

    late winter
    the swing where she was
    abducted

  15. AJ Johnson Says:

    virgin snow
    untouched by
    angel wings

  16. Mark Teaford Says:

    waiting
    to take the first step
    into treatment

    riding the second swing
    a ghost
    leaves no footprints

    just enough
    snow
    to start anew

  17. Alvin B. Cruz Says:

    the shadow
    of an empty swing
    winter deepens

  18. Debbie Feller Says:

    empty swing
    above snow drifts
    pushed by the wind

  19. Laura Miller Says:

    childhood—
    pure as snow
    just as fleeting

  20. Catherine Donnelly Says:

    Let me do that one over again:

    Frozen memories
    so deep, the impending thaw
    cannot unearth them

  21. Ravi Kiran Says:

    frozen silence
    thoughts sway towards
    our time together

  22. Wieslaw Karlinski Says:

    first snow
    completely different
    scent of porridge

  23. Stephen Iles Says:

    Still cold silent
    but the swing moves both ways…

  24. Claudette Russell Says:

    light and shadow
    the memories
    that define us

  25. Angele Ellis Says:

    caught in the branches
    of memory
    one shadow

  26. Sam Bateman Says:

    that winter when
    everything stopped
    deepening snow

  27. María Julia Guzmán Says:

    deep winter –
    childhood returns
    in the shadow of the swing

  28. María Julia Guzmán Says:

    the silent presence
    of the shadows…
    memories of that far away winter

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