A Journal of Short Verse

Every world
in three lines.

Celebrating 15 years of publishing the finest short-form poems in the world

We are ants marching
Carving cities through the dirt
Steered by unseen hands

Chris Wood

Read Issue 60 Submit Your Work

Recently Accepted

From Some of the World's Finest Poets

The latest poems to earn a place in our pages.

Quiet, semi-dark
Birdsong pierces the stillness
Magnitude sets in

Rebecca Klein

They hunt with light, the nightboats
thin, iron arms cast blinding full moons
to rapturous shrimp. We eat.

Kerry Rawlinson

Chasing the fireflies
eyes wide open at fireworks
nights to remember

Lorraine Cipriano

In the Autumn distance,
the spire of a white clapboard church
floats in a Serrat background of leaves.

Paul Bluestein

We are ants marching
Carving cities through the dirt
Steered by unseen hands

Chris Wood

We teach children not to stare;
to hide their wild curiosity, and count
as blessing, relief from observance.

David Hershhorn

The shortest poems
carry the longest shadows.

Three Line Poetry is a journal devoted to the art of the compressed image — poems that arrive complete in three lines, that hold their breath and say everything in the space of a moment.

We draw on the tradition of the haiku and the senryū, of Bashō and Issa and Buson, and we carry that spirit into the present: contemporary voices, global perspectives, the full weight of human experience in the fewest possible words.

We believe the short poem is not a lesser poem. It is a harder one. We publish the poets who understand that.

3 Lines. That's all.

Every word earns its place or it goes
The image does the work the statement cannot
Silence between lines is part of the poem
Short is not simple — it is ruthless
The best three-line poem leaves a fourth line unwritten

Read

Every issue is free to read online — a full gathering of voices from poets around the world. Browse the archive going back to our first issue. No subscription, no paywall.

Browse all issues →

II.

Submit

We welcome original three-line poems from all writers, anywhere in the world. Read our guidelines, check your line lengths, and send us your best work. We read everything.

Submission guidelines →

III.

Collect

Each issue is also available in a beautifully printed paperback edition — a physical object made to last. Take the poems off the screen and put them on your shelf.

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Highly Competitive

Publication in Three Line Poetry is earned, not given. With an acceptance rate of just 5.9%, every poem in our pages has survived a rigorous editorial process. Settle in for a reading experience that is unmatched anywhere.

2,964 Accepted

46,980 Declined

49,944 Submissions

5.9% Acceptance Rate

Every worldin three lines.