!

"

OPINION

Challenging the insta-poet

community
VINU CASPER · APRIL 13, 2018 · 0 COMMENTS

Poetry is—and has always been—a performance art, but the amount of substandard
poetry being performed might be bogging the community down more than raising it
up.

This past year has seen a massive uptick in the number of poets. Poetry book sales
increased by 79 percent in 2016. This competitive spirit has driven poets to dig
deeper and write more meaningful poetry, often throwing light on issues that would
otherwise be left in the dark like abuse, racism and sexism.

Whether its origins are from Norse Vikings or the ancient Japanese, spoken word
poetry has always been a powerful artform. It has been performed before kings and
before countries, to flatter and to fight and, most importantly, to emote. One of its
current platforms can be traced back to the early ‘80s in Chicago, where sleepy poetry
recitations were livened up with contests, or as poets call them, slams.

Poetry is growing ever more prominent, and when poetry increases in impact, more
people start writing, which is great in theory. It means that performance poetry finds
better footing as a contemporary artform, a bigger audience and a space for poets to
make careers out of passion. Poets from India, China, Vietnam, Canada, England, Brazil,
Sudan and all across the globe are becoming revolutionaries, standing for what they
believe in and making a real difference. It’s inspiring to know that words can go from
paper to stage, becoming a herald of societal betterment.

We live in a world full of overenthusiastic teenagers, fame-hungry capitalists and

activists willing to do anything to aid their cause. In a such a world, people try to stay
on top of the fad and consequently turn the poetry industry to a conveyor belt
churning out a long line of mediocre poems. Sometimes these poems are written by
the genuinely interested newcomer who’s too eager to perform and doesn’t work on
their writing enough; other times, they’re written by the social media influencer who
saw a new platform to exploit.

More than the poetry community at large, the conveyor belt hurts the struggling
individual. Poets who spend years honing their craft, carefully writing and rewriting
every line, practicing their performance over and over before they take to stage, are
being beaten to the punch by influencers with a steady social media presence and
masses of followers. These so-called insta-poets get away with blanket statements
and empty metaphors under the guise of poetry.

This trend is most visible on Instagram, a site littered with pictures of one or two or
four lines of sentimental, generic drivel in a typewriter font that is meant to be poetry.
Instagram poets include J. Iron Word, R.M. Drake and a dozen other identical poets
whose posts you wouldn’t be able to tell apart, if not for their names at the bottom of
the post.

This is not to say that poetry cannot be simple, but when these poets churn out
mindless poems like clockwork, keeping them to fewer than 20 words every time, you
cannot help but wonder if this is all for sake of engagement. Their daily posts become
a ploy that focuses on the outcomes of or reactions to poetry rather than poetry
itself, or more importantly, the process of writing poetry.

I’ve attended slam after slam, only to find 60 different poets writing in the name of
feminism. Such poets use the same ocean metaphor to describe themselves, or win
the national poetry slam because they offered up the most social justice selling points.
Rupi Kaur appears to steal from Tumblr statuses and call it poetry, only to go on to
write a bestselling poetry book.

I cannot accept that these practices are not motivated by the urge to turn a quick
buck. I’m sure this phenomenon has shown up in every performance artform, when a
few artists capitalize on a trending phase only to explode into relevance. But when it
trickles into performances that base themselves on original thought and raw emotion,
when it stains authentic expression—which is what poetry is all about—the whole
platform begins to feel counterfeit.

# $

PREVIOUS POST NEXT POST

City of Portland threatens Supporting introverts in the

houseless advocates with fines classroom

NEWS PRINT ARTICLES UNCATEGORIZED

PSU employees enroll in Work Share

program

by AIDAN KENNELLEY · JUNE 29, 2020 · 0 COMMENTS

Today’s Calendar

by JOHANNA COLE · NOVEMBER 7, 2002 · 0 COMMENTS

UNCATEGORIZED

Ryan Brown makes long jump to Division I

by IMRAN HAIDER · APRIL 11, 2002 · 0 COMMENTS

Leave a Comment %

Follow us on Facebook

Portland State Vanguard

Follow Page 2.7K followers

Portland State Vanguard

about an hour ago

"#1 tennis player Novak Djokovic announced

his eligibility to defend his title in the Australian
Open in Melbourne on Jan. 4 by sharing that he
had been approved for a medical exemption
from a COVID-19 vaccine, as reported by
Reuters."

PSUVANGUARD.COM
Djokovic removed from Australia an…
#1 tennis player Novak Djokovic announced …

Follow us on Instagram

Follow on Instagram

Vanguard Podcast

October 5th, 2021

oct. de 2021 • What A Week
Seguir

05:43

The Highest Court Report

No Votes for You

mar. de 2021 • The Highest Court Report
Seguir

29:50

Portland State's student-run newspaper Jobs Contact

: