Twiplet

by Mike Snider

Yeah, I Tweet. And I invented a verse form that (barely) fits the 140 character limit on Twitter. I first called the form a twinnet, but I prefer twiplet now.

A twiplet has (in its published definition) three lines in any meter or no meter. All three lines end-rhyme with one another. In addition, the third line has, near its beginning, a rhyme with a non-end word in the first line, and, near its middle, a rhyme with a non-end word in the second line. The total character count, including spaces and carriage returns, must be within twitter's 140 character limit.

Lewis Turco has included the form in his The Book of Forms (4th edition). He uses two of mine for examples. (I don't know if anyone else has written one.)

ExamplesEdit

twinnet1
A Twinnet’s tangled rhyme, its tiny scope
And low byte count, let twittering poets hope,
This time, to mount the Muses’ cyberslope.

"Minimalist Winter Twiplet":
Cold night
May blight
Old daylight.

[untitled]
A twiplet's tangled rhyme, its tiny scope
And low byte count, let twittering poets hope,
This time, to mount the Muse's cyberslope.

(all above by Mike Snider}

The twiplet's fun, but tricky.
I trust you're not too picky,
So here's one I just put in the wiki.
(George Dance}