At just 140 characters each, the form is limiting. But that’s the point. (So are sonnets.) And a well-aimed tweet can convey your message in a few seconds to the more than 1,000,000 people who hold Twitter accounts. The key to composing the perfect tweet is to:

• Pay attention to how the words sound. “Poetry is breath, it’s just air. If it’s being tweeted, that’s a representation, that’s the notation. The essence of poetry is what you hear.”
• Think about what it is you are actually saying. Then make every word count.

Big Think asked Pinsky to read his poem “The City,” then translate it into a tweet.

After brief a pause, this is what he came up with: 

Pinsky actually pulled it off in exactly 100 characters!

I always ponder how Shakespeare and Cervantes would use Twitter.