The Best 22-Word Poems of 2022

Poetry / By / February 22, 2023 / 1 minute of reading

In 2022, we held a contest inviting poets to write two 22-word poems. The poems below include our two favorite sets of poems plus our two favorite individual poems from the remaining contest entries.

Seagull on post with the number 22
Photo by micheile dot com on Unsplash
The Only Thing Left

was his smell. Buried in his collar, dank, musk after rain. He must have pounded the brakes on that slick country road.

How Did It Feel

to be lifted to the sky? Plunge. Strike solid ground. I’ve heard time slows. I wonder, did he smell his own fear?

—Diane Gottlieb

***

Dialect

I owe you, my students,
an explanation.
My Spanish accent
isn’t listed in the textbook,
I reclaimed my heritage
with Univision Spanish.

Genealogy

Tree branches fill:
names I never knew,
homelands that once were,
languages lost.
My grandfather’s glee
was compensation enough
for the research.

—Angela Acosta

***

Ashura

That was
before,

when the owl sang
during the day.

When the cactus
was only smooth edges.

When the roses
were yellow.

—Fatima van Hattum

***

I Heard Your Voice in Passing 

The road was wet
with laughter. Buzzing:

the emptiness after.

All it has left me
(deflated, seeking, unaware—

driving backwards)
is despair.

—Julia Watson

About The Author

Diane Gottlieb’s writing has appeared in Atlas and Alice, Bending Genres, Barrelhouse, 100-Word Story, The VIDA Review, The Rumpus, and Hippocampus, among other literary journals, as well as in several anthologies. She is the winner of Tiferet’s 2021 Writing Contest in nonfiction and is Prose/CNF Editor of Emerge Literary Journal. You can find her at dianegottlieb.com and on Twitter @DianeGotAuthor. Angela Acosta is a bilingual Mexican American poet and scholar from Florida. Her work has appeared in Panochazine, Pluma, Toyon Literary Magazine, and The Acentos Review. She is author of Summoning Space Travelers (Hiraeth Publishing, 2023) and Fourth Generation Chicana Unicorn (Dancing Girl Press, 2023). She is currently completing her Ph.D. in Iberian Studies at The Ohio State University. Fatima van Hattum is a PhD candidate in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies at the University of New Mexico and works as Program Co-Director at New Mexico’s statewide women’s foundation. Her poetry has been featured in: CALYX Journal, apt, Chapter House Journal, and New Moons: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims. She lives in Santa Fe, is Muslim, and has a large, wonderful family and confusing background. Julia Watson earned her MFA from North Carolina State University. Her works have been published in The Shore, Voicemail Poems, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, among other journals. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina with her grumpy dogs. You can read more of her work at juliawatsonwriter.com.
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