Poetry on the Internet
It
was perhaps only a matter of time after Twitter was created in 2006
that a platform dedicated to pithy, brief SMS communications was
capitalized on by the writers of brief, pithy ... poetry. Sometimes
called "micro-poetry," and in the spirit of the haiku, Twitter poetry
limits itself to the 280 (once 140) characters of the platform. This
constraint allows a certain freedom in choosing ones word carefully, something all great poets do.
Twitter poetry has a specific relationship to its audience. If they like what you have to say, they might retweet your poem. This dissemination model is quite different than buying a poetry book and passing it along; it means ones poem can theoretically go "viral." So Sad Today, one of the Twitter poets you are reading for this week's module, did just that. Her popular account now has 556k followers, and she received a book deal as a result--which, oddly, turned out to be a book of personal essays and not poems--she is, however, a known and loved poet who also works with more traditional forms. In fact, she draws a clear distinction between her Twitter persona and her poetry book persona, stating that in her books she tries to use imagery that is more "timeless" such as the ocean and horses, and in her Twitter poems she feels free to utilize pop cultural references and trends, and to experiment more freely.
Some Twitter poets choose to be anonymous. So Sad Today and another poet you read for this week's class, Emoji Dickinson, both started off as anonymous (Emoji Dickinson, perhaps taking after her notoriously private namesake, remained that way until she quit tweeting in July). This can allow the poet to experiment in ways they may not normally feel comfortable "in real life" or in the poetry community. To that end, one aspect of creating a Twitter poem is creating a twitter "persona." Persona is derived from the Greek word for mask, which referred to the masks wore in the Greek theater; one way to look at it is to think of creating a character. Whether it's a mash-up like Emoji Dickinson (emojis plus Emily Dickinson poems) or an angsty teenage girl like So Sad Today, or the Astro Poets (poets Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky, both celebrated poets who practice astrology), generally the best twitter poetry personas either combine two elements usually seen as disparate. This can look like high and low culture a la emojis and Emily Dickinson or poems and astrology, or can simply be a well-considered "type" such as angsty teenager.
Discussing social media poetry, I would be remiss if I did not mention that Tumblr is also a platform for poetry. Now bestselling author Rupi Kaur came to fame on Tumblr and Instagram for her poems combining illustration and text, which resonated deeply with an audience of mostly young women. With her work criticized frequently as being trite and cliche, Kaur is one of the most financially successful and well known social media poets. She has reached a wide audience of people who do not usually read poetry. Bunny Rogers also got her start in poetry by publishing her work on Tumblr. Her work makes strong use of the medium, combining .gifs and images with short fragments of text inspired by the work of e.e. cummings. Hers is ephemeral, mysterious work that is easy to "reblog." Rogers has since shown her work in the Whitney Museum, and published analogue books of poetry in addition to continuing to publish her work on her Tumblr.
One of the values of social media as a platform for poetry is that it can be disseminated to an audience without going through a gatekeeper. Book deals come after, not before, the poetry. (And often aren't even the goal of the poets).
Last but not least, I have also included the work of Ranjit Bhatnagar, whose Pentametron account makes use of algorithms in order to crowdsource the unintended iambic pentameter poetry of Twitter. His work is a nice bridge to some of the work we will look at next week, which utilizes language from social media to create more conceptual artworks in different spaces than the original social media account in which the language first appeared (often these works end up on the analogue page, but also can be used for video work, etc).
Twitter poetry has a specific relationship to its audience. If they like what you have to say, they might retweet your poem. This dissemination model is quite different than buying a poetry book and passing it along; it means ones poem can theoretically go "viral." So Sad Today, one of the Twitter poets you are reading for this week's module, did just that. Her popular account now has 556k followers, and she received a book deal as a result--which, oddly, turned out to be a book of personal essays and not poems--she is, however, a known and loved poet who also works with more traditional forms. In fact, she draws a clear distinction between her Twitter persona and her poetry book persona, stating that in her books she tries to use imagery that is more "timeless" such as the ocean and horses, and in her Twitter poems she feels free to utilize pop cultural references and trends, and to experiment more freely.
Some Twitter poets choose to be anonymous. So Sad Today and another poet you read for this week's class, Emoji Dickinson, both started off as anonymous (Emoji Dickinson, perhaps taking after her notoriously private namesake, remained that way until she quit tweeting in July). This can allow the poet to experiment in ways they may not normally feel comfortable "in real life" or in the poetry community. To that end, one aspect of creating a Twitter poem is creating a twitter "persona." Persona is derived from the Greek word for mask, which referred to the masks wore in the Greek theater; one way to look at it is to think of creating a character. Whether it's a mash-up like Emoji Dickinson (emojis plus Emily Dickinson poems) or an angsty teenage girl like So Sad Today, or the Astro Poets (poets Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky, both celebrated poets who practice astrology), generally the best twitter poetry personas either combine two elements usually seen as disparate. This can look like high and low culture a la emojis and Emily Dickinson or poems and astrology, or can simply be a well-considered "type" such as angsty teenager.
Discussing social media poetry, I would be remiss if I did not mention that Tumblr is also a platform for poetry. Now bestselling author Rupi Kaur came to fame on Tumblr and Instagram for her poems combining illustration and text, which resonated deeply with an audience of mostly young women. With her work criticized frequently as being trite and cliche, Kaur is one of the most financially successful and well known social media poets. She has reached a wide audience of people who do not usually read poetry. Bunny Rogers also got her start in poetry by publishing her work on Tumblr. Her work makes strong use of the medium, combining .gifs and images with short fragments of text inspired by the work of e.e. cummings. Hers is ephemeral, mysterious work that is easy to "reblog." Rogers has since shown her work in the Whitney Museum, and published analogue books of poetry in addition to continuing to publish her work on her Tumblr.
One of the values of social media as a platform for poetry is that it can be disseminated to an audience without going through a gatekeeper. Book deals come after, not before, the poetry. (And often aren't even the goal of the poets).
Last but not least, I have also included the work of Ranjit Bhatnagar, whose Pentametron account makes use of algorithms in order to crowdsource the unintended iambic pentameter poetry of Twitter. His work is a nice bridge to some of the work we will look at next week, which utilizes language from social media to create more conceptual artworks in different spaces than the original social media account in which the language first appeared (often these works end up on the analogue page, but also can be used for video work, etc).
Comments
Post a Comment