The art of short poems was around long before internet. Leonard Cohen’s  ‘Annie’ & Roger McGough’s ‘Poem to a Petrol Pump Attendant’ being two fine twentieth century examples. But with the popularity of Twitter a new sort of short poem has come into vogue.

Twitter  Poems or ‘Twirps’, as they are affectionately known, can be a maximum of 140 characters in length. A character is any letter of the alphabet, punctuation mark or space. The poems can be in free verse or rhyme, titled or untitled - but any title is included in the  140 characters.

Popular hashtags include: #micropoetry #haiku #5lines #sixwords

To play the slideshow of these Twirps just click on a poem and then navigate backwards and forwards between them.