Tinderbox Poetry Journal
LightNews LightNews
banner
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
Tinderbox Poetry Journal
@tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
700 followers 80 following 13 posts
A quarterly online journal devoted to uplifting vibrant voices in poetry.
EIC: @LaurenK_Carlson | Poetry Editors: @geramee_ @ThreaWrites & @emilywolahan | Social Media Editor: @jacquiz

(cover photo by Darya Jum via Unsplash)
Posts Replies Media Videos
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
We are thrilled that Vol. 10 Is. 2 of Tinderbox is out in the world! Read all the wonderful poems at tinderboxpoetry.com.
Tinderbox Poetry Journal
tinderboxpoetry.com
December 5, 2025 at 12:06 AM
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
Tomorrow, Aug. 1, we’ll open submissions for our annual Brett Elizabeth-Jenkins Poetry Prize! The submission fee is $15 USD for up to 5 poems. The fees from this annual contest help us keep the proverbial light on. More details to come. Send us poems here: shorturl.at/aojAD
Tinderbox Poetry Journal Submission Manager
Tinderbox Poetry Journal Submission Manager Powered By Submittable - Accept and Curate Digital Content
shorturl.at
July 31, 2025 at 3:34 PM
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
We are so excited to announce our ✨new issue✨ Tinderbox 10.1! Read all the new poems (and new poetry book reviews) right here: tinderboxpoetry.com?utm_source=s...
Tinderbox Poetry Journal
tinderboxpoetry.com
June 6, 2025 at 4:18 PM
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
Tinderbox Poetry Journal is looking for a new Social Media Editor! This is a volunteer position that's responsible for promoting new issues of Tinderbox on Bluesky and Instagram. If graphic design really is your passion, please email our current Social Media editor, Jacqui, at zeng.jacqui@gmail.com
April 17, 2025 at 7:36 PM
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
We are still looking for a new Social Media Editor! If you're interesting in this volunteer position, please send us a chat #onhere or DM us on Instagram @ tinderboxpoetryjournal.
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social Tinderbox Poetry Journal @tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social · Mar 7
Do you love reading Tinderbox? Do you want to help us reach more readers? We are looking for a new Social Media Editor! Please DM us #onhere if you are interested.
illustration of a smartphone under the Tinderbox logo, text reads: We are looking for a social media editor! Please DM us if you are interested in this volunteer position.
March 29, 2025 at 9:43 PM
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
Do you love reading Tinderbox? Do you want to help us reach more readers? We are looking for a new Social Media Editor! Please DM us #onhere if you are interested.
illustration of a smartphone under the Tinderbox logo, text reads: We are looking for a social media editor! Please DM us if you are interested in this volunteer position.
March 7, 2025 at 6:00 PM
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
Our 2024 Contest Issue is Live! 🎉 We are so excited to share all of these poems with you.
2024's Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Prize Winner is "I Want" by Nancy Lynée Woo
2024's Maja Gama Editor's Prize Winner is "When We Look at Ancient Mesopotamian Myth" by Issam Zineh @izineh.bsky.social
Tinderbox Poetry Journal
tinderboxpoetry.com
January 6, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by Tinderbox Poetry Journal
alycia.bsky.social
yesterday at @scotbpocwriters.bsky.social we shared space & read together for #ReadPalestineWeek

here’s our reading list, some of which are free for download via P4P at the link below

we left with an action of resistance & invite you to do the same 🍉

publishersforpalestine.org/2024/11/29/f...
Black background with white and red text. A green band down the right side. SBWN Reading List #ReadPalestineWeek Swipe for what we read in our sharing space this week read & resist together Why so few women on the street at night, Sarona Abuaker The Moon That Turns You Back, Hala Alyan Recognising the Stranger, Isabella Hammad Sambac Beneath Unlikely Skies, Heba Hyek [...], Fady Joudah And most of all I would miss, Mira Mattar Ash & Air, Nadine Murtaja (translated. Fatema Alhashemi) Namesake, N.S. Nuseibeh The Tiny Journalist, Naomi Shihab Nye Writing the Camp, Yousif M Qasmiyeh Palestinian Walks, Raja Shehadeh Forest of Noise, Mosab Abu Toha Blood Orange, Yaffa
December 4, 2024 at 8:58 AM
Reposted by Tinderbox Poetry Journal
alycia.bsky.social
join us at @scotbpocwriters.bsky.social for an hour of reading together online and sharing space during #ReadPalestineWeek 🇵🇸🖤

on 3rd december, we’ll read some of Publishers4Palestine free resources and books + other work

register for our solidarity lunch hour here docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
A green graphic with the text: SBWN Solidarity Space #ReadPalestineWeek 3rd December, 2024 12pm to 1pm online read & resist together open to everyone: Black people, people of colour, and white allies
November 30, 2024 at 8:21 AM
Reposted by Tinderbox Poetry Journal
arablit.bsky.social
Throughout #ReadPalestineWeek, there are a selection of free ebooks available through the publishersforpalestine.org website, as well as events & actions you can take now.
Please visit publishersforpalestine.org for the complete list of free books. Please visit publishersforpalestine.org for the complete list of free books. Please visit publishersforpalestine.org for the complete list of free books.
November 29, 2024 at 7:17 AM
Reposted by Tinderbox Poetry Journal
mskellymhayes.bsky.social
Around this time every year, I share a list of ways to support Native people. From supporting Indigenous people seeking abortion care to defending Native voting rights and keeping Native families together, here are some causes worth supporting. 🧵
November 28, 2024 at 1:51 AM
Reposted by Tinderbox Poetry Journal
arablit.bsky.social
🎁This year, we have put together a Holiday Giving list.

It includes mutual-aid suggestions and gifts you can buy where 100% of profits go to Palestine, Sudan, Lebanon: books, art, pottery, more.

Thanks to everyone who helped w/the list.

arablit.org/2024/11/28/h...
Holiday Giving, 2024
By ArabLit Staff, with the wider community We have, in the past, run holiday-gift listicles. This year, we focus on gifts where profits go to community support, mutual aid, and on-the-ground assist…
arablit.org
November 28, 2024 at 7:28 AM
Reposted by Tinderbox Poetry Journal
saycarey1.bsky.social
Writing reviews is hard, but so incredibly rewarding when even one person reads the review & buys the book or gains more insights into it. I've written a few this year for @tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social. My latest on R.L. Farr @rfarr.bsky.social 's Become Echo from Atmosphere Press.
bit.ly/3XPb6Li
Review of Become Echo by R. L. Farr | Tinderbox Poetry Journal
bit.ly
November 27, 2024 at 8:32 PM
Reposted by Tinderbox Poetry Journal
glasspoetry.bsky.social
"Bodies and Language Always Fail" by Donna Vorreyer (@djvorreyer.bsky.social), from Tinderbox Poetry Journal (@tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social)

tinderboxpoetry.com/bodies-and-l...
Donna Vorreyer Bodies and Language Always Fail I. My father worked to erase the South Side from his salesman’s tongue, gently but insistently corrected my brothers and I as we grew. The thud of the hard D replaced by the buzzing digraph of TH: Them not dem Those not dose The hard AH tilting the mouth sideways turned to a softer rounder AW: Chi-CAW-go, not Chi-CAH-go In 1991, Saturday Night Live aired the first iteration of “Da Bears” sketch. I watched Mike Myers, Chris Farley, guest host Joe Mantegna don that accent as a punchline. My father had known thirty years earlier what they now mined for laughs—the accent was ripe for mocking. II. I pledge allegiance to my musculature, my disjointed state of disrepair. My blood flag. My nerve anthem. Isthmus of nose. Archipelago of age spots. Hail the cracked joints, the bone spurs, the torn tendons. The blurred eye, its floating speck of storm. Lakes of bruises. Rivers of night sweat. Body I hate I need I shun I nurture I hate I pamper I hate I need I need I hate I need I need to love more. Body that carries me. Body of multitudes. Body of declarations. Body dependent and independent. One nation under damaged skin. Sweet land of flab and accidents—land that I inhabit. Of thee, I sing. III. degenerative: grated gear //vintage grievant//riveted vine//enraged gradient tender edge//tiered revenge//inert and raving dearie renegade train//reneged range envied grave IV. On my last night with my father, death loitered in the corner like a comedian in a cheap suit, mocking us, dragging out the punchline. Wrapped in my dad’s favorite Chicago Bears blanket, I slumped beside his bed, close enough to hold his hand, to watch his breath catch and fall. On the television, Pitch Perfect played on low volume, and I watched the mouths of the singers press into bilabial stops, buzz into digraphs, circle into rounded o’s. There was nothing left to say. What was waiting had erased all language from both of our tongues. Donna Vorreyer is the author of To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications. Her poetry, fiction, and essay work have appeared in Ploughshares, Cherry Tree, Poet Lore, Salamander, Harpur Palate, Booth, and many others. She lives and creates in the Chicago area and hosts the monthly online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey.
November 26, 2024 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Tinderbox Poetry Journal
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
Hello Bluesky! We are finally, officially, leaving Twitter and plan to be more active on our Bluesky account.

If you've been published in one of our past issues, please let us know you're here!
November 22, 2024 at 5:34 PM
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
Hello Bluesky! We are finally, officially, leaving Twitter and plan to be more active on our Bluesky account.

If you've been published in one of our past issues, please let us know you're here!
November 22, 2024 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Tinderbox Poetry Journal
hanvanderhart.bsky.social
We are at 71% for @riverriverbooks.bsky.social Kickstarter on our first day and…! Dang. Feeling so held by community, and wanting to support other presses who need it right now. Please share those calls with me and RRB and @amorak.bsky.social so we can boost 🌊🌊
River River Books: Poetry Distribution
Help us ship poetry to independent bookstores, libraries, and readers.
www.kickstarter.com
April 1, 2024 at 7:51 PM
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
🎉 Congrats to Nick Martino, one of our past contributors, on winning the Alice James Editor's Choice Prize! Alice James Books will publish his collection, Scrap Book, in June 2026. You can read his poem "Honeysuckle" right here: tinderboxpoetry.com/honeysuckle
March 9, 2024 at 8:24 PM
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
2024 marks the 10th anniversary of Tinderbox’s founding. As one of the longest running journals on the internet, a cash reserve would allow us to weather seasons of activity and rest while continuing to support our free subs weeks. We have a $1,000 matching donation, which means your dollars double!
Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Reserve Operating Fund., organized by Lauren Carlson
I'm Lauren, and I serve as editor for Tinderbox Poetry Journal, an on… Lauren Carlson needs your support for Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Reserve Operating Fund.
rb.gy
February 22, 2024 at 12:37 AM
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
We are accepting book review submissions! Is there a poetry collection that you want to uplift? We want to hear about it! Especially if it's your first time reviewing a book! Pitch us a review at our email: tinderboxreviews@gmail.com. Or submit a complete review at our Submittable: rb.gy/jhj2hc
January 10, 2024 at 9:39 PM
tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social
We're so excited to announce the contest winners for 2023! 1st Place, selected by Paul Hlava Ceballos, is Claire Pinkston's "Nocturne." This year's Majda Gama Editor's Prize winner is linda harris dolan's "for I have genetic heart disease. (or: unsaid things.)(or: to my husband, on my death.)"
text reads: BEJ Contest Winners: 1st Place, selected by Paul Hlava Ceballos: Claire Pinkston for Nocturne Honorable Mentions (in no particular order): Erica Reid's Shucking, Freesia McKee's A student asks can we write about abortion in this class, and Gabriel Dunsmith’s Circumabulation text reads: Majda Gama Editor's Prize Winner: linda harris dolan for I have genetic heart disease. (or: unsaid things.)(or: to my husband, on my death.)
December 21, 2023 at 8:31 PM