I enjoyed reading your candid response to Instagram poetry. The platform is pushing more toward performance poetry now than it ever did a couple of years ago. This is a shame to see, given that I come from an old-school background of writing poetry rather than giving an oratory adaptation of what I've written.
Also, I found your honesty to be very refreshing. There are so many "gatekeepy" types in these creative circles now, and it becomes almost impractical to speak up against really bad writing. Less you receive commentary like "anything can be poetry" or "not everyone writes traditionally" as if you're part of some kind of creative writing monarchy. I wrote a series of haiku that poked fun at some of the poems from Rupi Kaur's 'Milk & Honey' at one point out of jest. I ended up receiving a couple of DMs that weren't so pleasant, but the comment section of the post was clean surprisingly enough.
Anyway, we need more people to open up about this in my opinion. A lot of who I know as writers would agree with what you say too, but are too timid to speak up about it. So, thank you for writing this.
Thing is, no one is gatekeeping; everyone is "allowed" to write a poem, short story, or what have you. However, if you don't bother learning the mechanics, and simply write from the heart, sure, it will be emotional, it might be relatable—arguably inflicting your diary entries onto readers is "brave"—but it won't be good. And no one is obligated to praise or celebrate subpar writing e.g. poems that barely qualify as such, to maintain an ego-preserving delusion. The solution lies not in lowering standards, but in raising one's skill level.
I find this phenomenon is also common with people who write endless pretty-but-pointless descriptive pieces and think it will one day amount to a novel, despite never sitting down to define the character's goals and oncoming obstacles, nor the theme. If you critique their work, it seems you're only allowed to praise pretty turns of phrase and never point out that the reader has absolutely no reason to care about golden leaves and babbling brooks in the absence of a story.
"anything can be poetry" I've heard this one, it was phrased as "a poem is simply anything that isn't prose". Thanks for reading and commenting :)
Exactly, improving your ability to write is always a fundamental aspect of developing yourself as a writer. This goes for any creative writing modality.
It seems like a lot of online poetry is "emotional garbage" or displays of emotional thought in the form of personal diary entries. There is no real thought being put into what is written. Not to mention it creates a very toxic environment when someone has to sift through it all every time they enter the social media space.
I don't have an Instagram account anymore for this very reason. On top of the fact most writers on there hardly supported anyone else but themselves, and the platform didn't do enough to push new writers/creators into the limelight to become noticeable. It was almost like being part of a popularity contest where only the accounts with high follower numbers won. Or, in gamer terms, it was pay-to-win.
But as you've said, the phenomenon is common among people who write endless pretty-but-pointless pieces, or what I call puff pieces.
I'd pay more attention to someone's work if they could keep me interested. Which means going beyond writing in a journalistic manner. They need to use literary devices and tell me a story that is worth reading. Albeit there are shorter forms like haiku and tankas, but that's a different way of writing altogether with different standards.
I laughed at that quote "a poem is simply anything that isn't prose," because that's not true. There are plenty of poems that are prose. It is called narrative poetry, most of the older writers have published at least one in their careers. Also, just because someone takes two sentences and breaks it up into smaller lines, that doesn't make it a poem. It has to have poetic devices being used. It's very naive the way these "experts" claim to be poets.
God bless this post for ever and ever and once more for truth in writing, amen. Yours truly, Jason Preu
I feel that you too must have been victimised by Insta poetry! :) Thanks for reading & commenting.
I enjoyed reading your candid response to Instagram poetry. The platform is pushing more toward performance poetry now than it ever did a couple of years ago. This is a shame to see, given that I come from an old-school background of writing poetry rather than giving an oratory adaptation of what I've written.
Also, I found your honesty to be very refreshing. There are so many "gatekeepy" types in these creative circles now, and it becomes almost impractical to speak up against really bad writing. Less you receive commentary like "anything can be poetry" or "not everyone writes traditionally" as if you're part of some kind of creative writing monarchy. I wrote a series of haiku that poked fun at some of the poems from Rupi Kaur's 'Milk & Honey' at one point out of jest. I ended up receiving a couple of DMs that weren't so pleasant, but the comment section of the post was clean surprisingly enough.
Anyway, we need more people to open up about this in my opinion. A lot of who I know as writers would agree with what you say too, but are too timid to speak up about it. So, thank you for writing this.
Thing is, no one is gatekeeping; everyone is "allowed" to write a poem, short story, or what have you. However, if you don't bother learning the mechanics, and simply write from the heart, sure, it will be emotional, it might be relatable—arguably inflicting your diary entries onto readers is "brave"—but it won't be good. And no one is obligated to praise or celebrate subpar writing e.g. poems that barely qualify as such, to maintain an ego-preserving delusion. The solution lies not in lowering standards, but in raising one's skill level.
I find this phenomenon is also common with people who write endless pretty-but-pointless descriptive pieces and think it will one day amount to a novel, despite never sitting down to define the character's goals and oncoming obstacles, nor the theme. If you critique their work, it seems you're only allowed to praise pretty turns of phrase and never point out that the reader has absolutely no reason to care about golden leaves and babbling brooks in the absence of a story.
"anything can be poetry" I've heard this one, it was phrased as "a poem is simply anything that isn't prose". Thanks for reading and commenting :)
Exactly, improving your ability to write is always a fundamental aspect of developing yourself as a writer. This goes for any creative writing modality.
It seems like a lot of online poetry is "emotional garbage" or displays of emotional thought in the form of personal diary entries. There is no real thought being put into what is written. Not to mention it creates a very toxic environment when someone has to sift through it all every time they enter the social media space.
I don't have an Instagram account anymore for this very reason. On top of the fact most writers on there hardly supported anyone else but themselves, and the platform didn't do enough to push new writers/creators into the limelight to become noticeable. It was almost like being part of a popularity contest where only the accounts with high follower numbers won. Or, in gamer terms, it was pay-to-win.
But as you've said, the phenomenon is common among people who write endless pretty-but-pointless pieces, or what I call puff pieces.
I'd pay more attention to someone's work if they could keep me interested. Which means going beyond writing in a journalistic manner. They need to use literary devices and tell me a story that is worth reading. Albeit there are shorter forms like haiku and tankas, but that's a different way of writing altogether with different standards.
I laughed at that quote "a poem is simply anything that isn't prose," because that's not true. There are plenty of poems that are prose. It is called narrative poetry, most of the older writers have published at least one in their careers. Also, just because someone takes two sentences and breaks it up into smaller lines, that doesn't make it a poem. It has to have poetic devices being used. It's very naive the way these "experts" claim to be poets.