Summary

Chalkboard's One Line Poem project invites community members to submit concise poems of 30 words or less in response to weekly prompts, with specific guidelines for submission, formatting, and tagging.

Abstract

The One Line Poem project by Chalkboard is an initiative that celebrates the impact of brevity in poetry. It encourages participants to express a complete thought or emotion within the constraint of 30 words or less. Submissions are open to any Chalkboard writer, with the option for non-writers to request contribution access. New prompts are released every Wednesday, and participants are encouraged to sign up for a mailing list to stay updated. The project has recently updated its policy to accept only locked pieces as responses to prompts, emphasizing the community's preference for shared content. Poems must include a featured image with proper attribution and adhere to specific tagging guidelines for proper placement on the site. The editors request that submissions be in draft mode and include an "Inspired by" note crediting the prompt and prompter.

Opinions

The community prefers locked pieces to be responses to prompts, indicating a desire for contextual relevance and engagement with the project's themes.
There is a strong emphasis on sharing and accessibility, with a preference for unlocked pieces and the provision of friend links for locked content.
The requirement for a featured image of at least 900 pixels and proper attribution reflects the project's commitment to visual aesthetics and copyright compliance.
The editors are committed to maintaining the integrity of the project, with a willingness to assist with issues but also an expectation of adherence to submission policies.
The use of specific tags for different poem lengths suggests a structured approach to content organization and discovery on the platform.
The project values timeliness and order, requesting that writers include an "Inspired by" note and submit their work in draft mode to ensure proper sequencing on the One Line Poem tab.

One Line Poem Project

Submission policies: Responses

Welcome to Chalkboard’s on-going One Line Poem project. This project revolves around the idea that compressed poetry can have as much or more of an impact as a multi-verse poem. Weekly, we publish a prompt-piece developed by a Chalkboard community member. Participants respond to the prompt-piece with their own poem of 30 words or less.

Note: What follows are the policies for publishing your response on Chalkboard. If you write a poem that doesn’t meet our parameters (which would be fine), we encourage you to self-publish or offer it to another publication.

What is a one liner?

One line poems are, by definition, short. For this project, they are no longer than 30 words. Specifically, poems submitted to Chalkboard for this project must be:

One verse, one sentence, one thought. Stringing multiple lines or phrases together is allowed as long as the poetic response is 30 words or less.

The word limit applies to the poem itself. If you have a story or explanation that goes with the piece, feel free to add it. We ask that you insert a divider between the piece and the explanation.

Who can submit?

Poems can be submitted by any Chalkboard writer. If you wish to be added as a Chalkboard writer, please go to either our Participate tab OR our Smedian page and click the request to contribute button.

When are new prompts published?

New prompts are published every Wednesday (usually by 2 pm California time.)

You can sign up for our mailing list by completing this form.

Once a prompt has been published, you may respond to it at any time. The last 24 prompts are shown at the bottom of the One Line Poem tab of Chalkboard.

UPDATED: Can I submit locked pieces?

This project accepts locked pieces only when they are responses to prompts. We are making this change at the request of a large percentage of the community. If you are unable to see a locked piece, leave the author a note asking for the friend link. We do not accept locked prompts!

Please note: We prefer unlocked pieces, as a good part of our community are not members. Please be willing to share friend links if you lock your one liner.

What tags should I use?

We use two tags for placement of your piece on our page: “Chalkboard Espresso” or “One Line”.

Use the “Chalkboard Espresso” tag if the length of your poem is 15 words or less
Use the “One Line” tag if the length of your poem is 16 to 30 words

On your responses, please do not use the tag “One Line Poetry Prompt”, which is reserved for the poet providing the prompt. If you do, your poem will show in the wrong place on our site. The editors will do our best to remove this prompt where applicable, but we do not guarantee we will catch all uses of it.

The other 4 tags Medium allows on a piece are yours to choose. We recommend giving your piece the tag “poetry” for maximum exposure.

Do I need a featured image?

Poems submitted for publication in this project must have at least one image. The size of the main image must be at least 900 pixels on at least one side. Poems with images smaller than that will not be accepted.

In addition, images must have attribution in the caption of your image. Acceptable captions include:

Image by the author (or from the personal collection of the author)
A standard attribution caption from Unsplash
A link to the location of the original image
A link to the Flickr version of the image AND a link to the photographer’s profile on Flickr

What else do I need to know?

While we do not require a link to the prompt piece for the week, we do ask that you include at least an “Inspired by” note that mentions the prompt and the prompter for the week.

Submissions should be in draft mode. Poems that have already beem published may be submitted to Chalkboard, but please realize they may not show on the One Line Poem tab in the right order.

If issues with your submission need to be addressed before the piece is ready for publication, it will be returned. The editors will help if they have time and are able. Otherwise, you will need to find and fix the problems with the piece and resubmit it. Often issues relate to the image and attribution, and we need absolute adherence to our policies in this area. Repeated violations may get your editor upset, which should be avoided. 😃

Again, please word count your pieces before submitting them.