Micropoetry | Twitter | Startup
Relaunching #twittle
100-letter micropoems to #twittletweet and #twittleonTwitter
Greetings, ladies, gents and Twitter tweeters everywhere, to the relaunch of #twittle.
In keeping with all things tweetable, this announcement will be short and sweet. In fact, the quickest way to tell you about #twittle is to give you an example of one.
A #twittle is a Twitter dribble - a four-line poem; a quatrain of precisely one hundred letters, just enough to test your brain!
If you’re in a hurry and that’s all you need to know about twittles, thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day — and remember to check out #twittleonTwitter. 🙏 😊
For those of you who would like to know more about twittles, stick around a little longer for the inside story.
All you need to know about twittle
The term twittle is a portmanteau, a blending, of twitter and dribble. Twitter, of course, refers to the social media network with the blue-on-white/white-on-blue bird logo and the 280-character-limit microblogs called tweets. Dribble, on the other hand, has nothing to do with saliva or basketball tactics and everything to do with micropoetry.
Specifically, a dribble is -
‘a brief poem consisting of exactly 100 letters (not 100 characters — spaces and punctuation are not counted). Dribbles most often take the form of a quatrain that turns on a single rhyme…’ https://poetscollective.org/poetryforms/dribble/
I’ve written about dribbles here and here.
To be clear —
A twittle is a dribble poem tweeted on Twitter.
Personally, and from here on in, I’m ditching the term dribble and switching to twittle regardless of the manner of publication because ‘that ‘d’ word’, quite frankly, is a stupid name for what I think is a nifty form of poetry.
But that’s not the only reason for the ditch’n’switch
As this screenshot shows you, the word twittle is all about poetry, birds and twitters. That dovetails neatly into my definition of twittle.
For those of you familiar with the Loomian Legacy video game — and those of you, like me, who aren’t — its creators picked up on the avian theme when they named their evolving bird character, Twittle. As you can see from this screenshot the name is ‘a portmanteau of ‘tweet’ and ‘little’.’ See, I’m not the only one with a thing for portmanteaus! 😉
Google threw up a few other random offerings for twittle including a slang definition from Urban Dictionary that I chose to dismiss. The main online dictionaries were all MIA and a quick check of the hardcopy Oxford also drew a blank. I came to the conclusion that, unlike ‘that ‘d’ word’, twittle barely exists outside of its capital ‘T’ form. That makes it ripe for the picking.
Almost…
With the advent of social media, words potentially inhabit two worlds — the real world and hashtag world. When it comes to word meaning, these two worlds often operate in different dimensions. It’s unwise to assume that a word that exists in the real world will have the same meaning in hashtag world. Conversely, it’s equally unwise to assume that a word that doesn’t exist in the real world has no life in hashtag world.
Enter #twittle
A search of hashtags on social media reveals that #twittle and #Twittle have made obscure appearances over the past decade but have largely fallen into disuse. Notably, as captured in this screenshot, a Twitter user explains that #twittle means ‘mini tweet’. Take a tiny semantic step and you arrive at ‘little tweet’ then a nip’n’tuck and, ta-dah, you have #twittle! This tweet, by the way, predates Loomian Legacy’s [little + tweet = Twittle] algorithm by seven years or more. Just saying! 😜
A twittle is a perfect #twittle
If #twittle already exists in Twittersphere as a ‘little tweet’ of sub-140 characters, then twittle poems of exactly 100 letters fit perfectly into that construct. In fact, they were made for each other. In fact, I’m surprised my fellow micropoetry buffs on Twitter haven’t commandeered the hashtag already. Maybe they’ve been waiting for me! Well, wait no longer. Consider #twittle one of ours!!
Let’s get #twittle hashtag happy 😄
Micropoetry has become a trend on social media with 17-syllable, 3-line haikus leading the charge. It’s spawned a hatchery of #haiku hashtags. #haikupoetry #haikupoem #haikus #haikuchallenge #haikuoftheday #haikuhumpday #haikudaily #dailyhaiku #haikujam #haikuprompt. The list goes on and on.
For #twittle to not only survive but thrive in hashtag world, it will need the same sort of kinship support that #haiku enjoys. For starters, I’m going with these –
#twittle #twittlepoem #twittlepoetry #twittlememe #twittletrain #twittletweet #twittleonTwitter
The #twittle promise
I accept that #twittle is unlikely to be an instant, overnight success. I accept that rebranding of anything invariably comes with risks. I accept that some of you will scratch your heads and wonder why I’m bothering with this venture. I accept that, for some, the challenge of knocking up a 100-letter-four-line twittle will be a test-too-far. I accept that the challenge to win over hard-line haiku fans will require some effort but as Robin Sharma says -
“You can’t win if you don’t try”
So, I’m giving this #twittle thing a try. Starting right here, right now -
“You can’t win if you don’t try” are Robin Sharma’s words of advice, so I’m trying this #twittle thing before I stop and think twice!
I accept it could take time for #twittletweet et al to catch on. A #twittle here; a #twittle there In a while, #twittle everywhere!
Every day is #twittletweet day, #tweet your #twittle any time; four lines and one hundred letters; don’t fuss if they don’t rhyme.
Sincere thanks for being here @ the Twitter #twittle relaunch. Give a cheer, hip-hip-hooray and ‘like’ #twittleonTwitter today! 😄
Find me and more #twittle twittles on Twitter
