Has Poetry Become Selfish?

[@MaryKGowdy]

I don't think it's just because you're older. I'm 21 and I can't stand a lot of what the instapoets put out. I think I'm even less understanding than you. I've never bought a full book by Rupi Kaur, Amanda Lovelace, or Atticus but I've read several of their poems in bookstores or on their instagrams. As for Rupi Kaur, I think she has some good poems that really make the minimalist style work but they're buried underneath a lot of lazy poems that I have a hard time calling poetry. This relates a lot to what is considered the most important aspect of poetry: form vs. meaning. I stand somewhere in the middle where I think a poem needs a good message or at least a strong emotion to be a great poem. If a poem is written beautifully but says nothing, then what's the point? But on the flip side, I don't like poems that are merely emotionally charged "quotes". I feel like a lot of contemporary poetry (and not just instapoetry) has lost the musicality that classical poetry had that I love. And what makes a poem "poetic"? What separates it from normal language? There has to be something otherwise everything is poetry. The division is very blurry and subjective. I also agree with you that poetry is a pretty selfish art form. Creating any art is at least somewhat egotistical since the artist has to have enough ego to feel like they have something to say that is worth listening to.

[@KayeSpivey]

This is so beautifully put! I'm glad to know it's not just me and that you feel similarly. I would love to delve deeper into what it is that makes a poem "poetic" because I think that's at the heart of the whole issue, but I guess that will take some serious research...

[@MaryKGowdy]

@@KayeSpivey Yeah, same. It's really hard to pin down.

[@heathermattern]

I love how articulate this video is. I have three teens and all are obsessed with the shorter verse. I’m hoping it woo’s them into poetry as a whole and they will feast eventually on more meaty pages.

[@KayeSpivey]

Thank you! I hope your teens do find more poetry through loving short verse! I think that's the best possible scenario that could come of it!

[@toddjacksonpoetry]

I've come to see InstaPoetry as the next stage of what's always been genred as Inspirational Poetry. When looked at that way it seems more interesting. Its value to me is that it's shown me that the snippets I've been carrying around for years, trying to stitch them into one longer poem after another, really are entire poems. Hades, in whom I shall be silent. Hades, in whom I shall be still. This old pain I've feared will never end Will.

[@dialecticsjunkie7653]

I'm 28, so not sure if I count as "young" anymore, but I love poetry that put emphasis on the formal craft side of things, and I absolutely don't have time for insta-poetry at all. Honestly I don't think it's really inherently about young people vs old people. It's more to do with the fact that we don't live in a world that appreciate words and language in the same way as before. People are not taught to value words for their own sake, and they're not given the correct toolbox to be able to understand things like meter and rhyme. That's why instapoetry is the predominant form of poetry in pop culture (that is, if you exclude hip hop, which is probably the only genre of mainstream poetry that still values craftsmanship a great deal -- at least when it comes to its best representatives like Kendrick Lamar and J Cole -- mumble rappers need not apply). People like instapoetry not for their poetic qualities but for their bare sentiment. The relationship between the audience and the work in instapoetry is much more parasocial -- it's like following the status updates of someone you see as a friend -- rather than artistic.

[@KayeSpivey]

That is an excellent way of putting it!

[@dialecticsjunkie7653]

@@KayeSpivey Thank you! I should also clarify that when I say our world doesn't teach us to value language as much, I don't mean it in a "old time smart, modern time dumb" kind of way. The younger generation is just as intelligent if not more than the past. The issue is more that we live in a visual internet age where we take in information via graphic means more and more. The tactile and rhythmic pleasures of spoken words, sound as sound, is not being valued as much. Even songwriters who write intelligent or poetic lyrics are preferring to slather them with a ton of electronic effect and layered distorted instrumentals, as if they were consciously trying to hide the words.

[@אריאלברקוביץ-ת5ס]

i totally agree with you, i dont resonate with this movement at all. i even consider what i write short, but its still around half a page, not just one sentence, with much more poetic techniques than a rupi kaur poem. btw, im in my last year of high school

[@ericquinn1412]

You are asking fundamental and difficult questions. All I will say at the moment is that one of the things missing right now is an appreciation of craftsmanship in poetry. Constructing a poem-house is hard work, and so is the opposite of selfishness; it creates a space for beauty that can be shared with others. Then there is the question of inspired poetry...I hope this helps you begin to answer your questions.

[@msrainbowmoonfire1802]

True...I guess it's because most people right now are always in a hurry. They just want to read bite sized poems. 😢

[@PoeticCoastCollectibles]

Thank goodness, I'm not the only one who doesn't like short stated poetry.

[@1967dragonaxe]

You try reading it when you’re in your 50’s Lol. I agree completely. They’re just Tweets masquerading as poetry

[@abstractbybrian]

Do you feel that all poems must have meter? My favorite poet is Billy Collins. I’m 55 and the most frustrating is I don’t even know if what I’m writing is poetry. So much “poetry” today doesn’t even seem like poetry, so confusing.

[@KayeSpivey]

I don't think it needs to have a formal meter, but there does have to be an internal consistency in the flow of the words, which meter accounts for, as does rhyme, but you can definitely achieve poetics without either. I love Billy Collins! He achieves a natural rhythm within his poetry even though it is free verse and utilizes a lot of sensory description. I don't think anyone would mistake one of his poems for prose.

[@warlorddk2070]

Poetry to me is a set of glasses put infront of the world, may it be a romantic view with meter and rhyme, or just a new perspective using images that makes people feel or think in new ways, form new metaphorical connections that when spoken out loud sounds just right for the purpose of the poem. :)

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Although great poetry is scandalously diverse, there are some undeniable features. The first is an absence of cliches/platitudes. If there are seeming cliches, they're subverted (immersed as they are in strange contexts), such that they're no longer cliches. The second is surprising metaphors/images/associations. The third is depth, ambiguity - which allows for multiple interpretations. If the poem can be entirely understood after a first glance or reading, it's probably not worth much. (Note: ambiguity is NOT the same thing as obscurity which in many cases is a defect.) The fourth is a unique or unmistakable style. If you read Emily Dickinson, you can see that nobody else writes like her (assuming you're well read). The fifth is technical and artistic mastery (or near-mastery): no word is out of place, the expressions are concise yet the poem's well developed, and the highest accomplishments SEEM effortless. (Just consider Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening".) If you detect labor in the poem, a sense of striving, it may be a decent work, but far from great. A rich and hypnotic type of music is certainly desirable, though not in all cases appropriate - depending on the subject matter. Extremely important is memorable lapidary language. One mistake a lot of aspiring poets make (including seasoned academics who've won awards) is that they're far too attached to their own views/beliefs; there's no distance between what they believe and the "poetic expression". (Which is why, for example, so many political and religious poems flounder, devoid of artistic merit.) There's no room for ambiguity or layers: we simply have the personal view/belief of the poet expressed. It often winds up sounding like a rant or form of propaganda. Deadly is the poet's commitment to what he/she considers "truth" because too much insistence on that winds up sounding dogmatic and stifles word-play and the imagination. Whatever depth is reached in the poem is reached indirectly, suggestively (usually), though direct statements can be powerful, with good timing. Now ask yourself: do any of the Instagram poets satisfy even ONE of these criteria?

[@turtleby]

i think it's just that it's easy for everyone to consume, it can be interpreted in many ways, and is easier to interpret and understand. Personally I'm not a big fan because i feel like anyone could write a "deep" sentence about life and then hit enter a couple times and they get an instapoem. Just doesn't feel special to me. But I do love that it lets more people get into poetry!

[@KayeSpivey]

I feel the same way. It's a great gateway especially for younger people to feel like someone is relating to them as long as that then opens the door for all the ways poetry really can relate to their lives and broaden their perspectives. :)

[@bubbledreams6382]

All that white space looks like when I would “write a book” in first grade but fill it with mostly pictures and spaces between paragraphs because I didn’t know what else to say.

[@KayeSpivey]

But on the other hand, if the pictures you drew went with the words, at some point doesn't that become a picture book?

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: March 22nd The farmer was bending over furrowed land When the sandy, serpentine trail claimed me. There was an embrace of irregularities, A nonchalant dismissal of symmetries. Imagined perfection had no business being there. Jagged rocks thrusted, asserted themselves. There were muddy patches and caked brown leaves. A few brown leaves crackled on dignified trees. Broken boughs, fallen pine needles, pine cones, The coarse bark, the pine trees, crooked and humped, The hiker, slightly turned, peeing up ahead, Other types of trees leaning, almost mischievously, As though by some imagined door, overhearing A secret or confession of someone they loved - All received the warmth and affection of March. Amidst such affection, I sometimes heard The distant call of a train, the cacophony Of dogs, the twitter or piercing note of a bird, Someone thumping down a brow of wooden stairs, Talking on his cell phone of mundane affairs. There was no disturbance, but a silence Cradling March light, a sweet acceptance, A space, delighted, seeming profoundly amused At its own various playful expressions, Not labeling one as higher or lower. I passed a hillock with straight and crooked tombstones, Turned, and reached a little secluded spot, Where small birds - not woodpeckers - were pecking At dark naked boughs, jaunty, sometimes hopping upward, Sometimes swinging downward, alighting on other trees. They continued their business closer and closer To me, or busy play, whatever it was. They pecked away on the same tree, moving away From each other on nearly level, opposite boughs Until they became eyes of a beautiful, strange face With dark webs or veins by which the clear sky Smiled a quiet, mischievous, welcoming smile. I stayed awhile and the twilight awoke - Old thoughts would return as surely as night; Confusion would burn, and that was all right - And I made my way back, growing hungry.

[@rievans57]

Poetry was going to be influenced by the internet sooner or later. Everything else in our world has. Without the internet Rupi Kaur might not have happened. The youth of the world lives on the net just as much if not more so than their elders. Quick and short thrives online and poets like Rupi Kaur found their home as well as a cash cow. Instead of creating art many poets are simply meeting a demand. It's like McDonalds Hamburgers, it ain't the best you ever had but it is convenient.

[@KayeSpivey]

That's a really interesting take on it! :)

[@abstractbybrian]

I love short poems because I’m dyslexic. Long poems make me Antsy and jittery.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: Red Cottage Days Simple - The country town store, its smoke-smelling wood, And my father buying groceries there, Then putting them in the car, driving through wood, The stillness embracing cool morning air, Crisscrossing beams under some sort of spell, Shadows concentrated in a trance-like stare, The path with a pebble-crunching tale to tell, Building up our anticipation, excitement, The red cottage hedge glittering a smile, And tall oak too, to the effect it's been a while... Sometimes we would have a barbecue soon, Then some hours later go fishing, Once twilight had shed its cocoon, And the lake had ceased its restless wishing, Our boat slicing through quietness, rocks and stone In the water slowly disappearing Into meditation, all becoming more intensely alone. We would often ride the car to town Once the night forgot itself in fireflies - Ride to the auction house filled with smoke and beer. He liked antique furniture. Our relationship was clear. It was simple, direct, honest, and deep. My strivings were unborn, his half-asleep. He still had hopes for his dreams at forty five. My thoughts were no busy bees yet, I had no hive. Simple words and silences fluttered about us, And no thoughts, no beliefs as yet divided us.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: Mother to Son For some months I have left you alone, For I saw that a flower does not grow The more easily with a rain of stone, Or insistence such-and-such should not be so. I would not confine you with my country's past Nor impose upon you my culture's cast. Questions about these can feather your sky, Can weave their arcs in a passionate style, And you can be sure I'll oblige with a smile. But if no questions stir and break their shells, I won't be bothered, I will leave you be. But I fear there's as yet no clarity About freedom: It is not desire Simply to do what your pleasures demand, To be in the clutch of frivolity's hand. A cell can be of gold, a comfort as well, But it remains, after all, a prison cell. You wanted to paint, you expressed passion, But you expected the stars at the start. You thought excitement was the kin of stars, And so boredom quietly crept in your heart. If you're to be seized by a sublime space Within, with the brushstroke being its kiss, You must not presume upon instant grace, Nor allow excitements to dominate. Dodging boredom, you'll never have a rich store. Each pleasure will leave you emptier than before. If pleasure and excitement are your nutrition, You will never grow petals; no sublime space Will court you, or bestow a master's grace.

[@warlorddk2070]

Instapoetry is 90% projection, people projecting value on vague standard cliche expressions. Its not even emotionally charged XD its just bombastic statements with mad superficial meanings for those that can barely read :P

[@md9569]

I know this is a rather old video, but as a 22 year old just getting into poetry, I must share my thoughts: I think the biggest problem here is with instagram itself. It's a rather superficial platform (for example, my experience on the app has been you post pretty pictures and then like and comment 😍😍😍 on all your friends posts) So Rupi and Co were able post some pretty pictures with relatable statement (poetry) next to it and people hit like and follow without thinking much about it. Then one day Rupi has amassed a couple million followers. She can release a book, promote it on Instagram and even if only a tiny fraction of that audience buys, she'll still be hitting best seller numbers. ('Literary merit', to use a snobby term, was never part of the equation.) That being said, it's hard to hate on something that brings so much positive attention to poetry. Most people my age thinks it's dry and esoteric (and they're kinda right lol...)

[@KayeSpivey]

This is a great analysis! :)

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: Meditation Anonymous One, Sometimes when cranes circle overhead, A person washes dishes with a circling hand. Sometimes when a bear runs and catches a silvery prize, A tennis player finds his perfect stride to the public's cries. Sometimes when a brand new car is first driven out, A bunch of new stars shed their cocoon. Sometimes when green leaves blush with the dawn of June, A virgin overcomes her awkwardness and doubt. Sometimes when it snows in Montreal or Edmonton, The flakes floating down, calm, That means that though the person has never known snow, His mind's calm, as he sits under a palm, While a lake in Vermont evens out to staring trees, And a dragonfly's perched on reed, at her ease. A leaf has fallen and a wind has blown In Africa, and a famous man emits a final moan. It's not quite synchronicity, it's much more: It's perhaps meditation, an awesome whole; It belies individual effort and control.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: More Beautiful Differences A single bird is pulled as needle from blue cloth. Hills drunk with shimmering green rustle being. A stream meditates, almost courting seeing. A figure, hunched over, is a kiss of distance, Each movement of arm almost embrace of soil. Three gray boulders are alive, mesmerized stillness. All movements, non-movement are luminous fact; Ideas scurry off like mice in light of fact. I don't stand here as Canadian, denying fact. Canada's a dream; there are people and earth. I don't know what I am, but I'm not Jewish; Being Jewish is yet another dream. There is seeing now, these hills, figure, stream, With unknowingness as my only wings. I don't embrace such ideas, and so I don't encourage division, needless woe. Is this throwing out too much that is rich? Is this the end of grand stories we can stitch? Not so: It's the beginning of me and you. The differences that remain shimmer, Being more beautiful and more deeply true.

[@UnchartedAtlas]

Me, we.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: A Far Stronger Longing You have muttered sombrely "There are no answers." Another has wondered, "Are you aloof? Do you care?" Another has caught a glimpse of Me yet I seem elusive, erratic, inconsistent, sometimes hiding Myself, sometimes revealing Myself. Problem is: you want both worlds. Problem is: people want both worlds. People want power, they lust for things under the sway of the shadow - then wonder where I am... They want to keep the rubbish they hold dear, holding to the machinations of the mind, yet longing for freedom... My inconsistency is their inconsistency of purpose; I veil Myself in proportion to which they veil themselves from themselves, mistaking their shadows for the light. They want the sweetness, the excitement without the bitterness: when bitterness comes they quickly turn to Me, they quickly turn, as though for freedom. A few long for it, yes. But longing for freedom is as populous as grains of sand nestled within a fingernail. That longing which elevates and refines the selfish instincts, which fashions them in the image of Me, thereby lending them legitimacy - that longing is far stronger.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: My Wife Anonymous One, If I turn my eyes from You, lovely words, My thoughts become a screen through which I see: There is no creation, I am my own Enemy, kin of Narcissus, like a painter turned to stone By his painting, as though he tried to fit The kaleidoscopic world into that one image alone. Words, too, are like young women in an office room: I work with them, admire their forms, their dress, But my Wife awaits me, and true happiness. She is Woman without image I cannot leave As I cannot leave myself, or if I try, I shall grow old as Adam, I shall grieve. So when I work, I work afresh, anew Because I feel You inside, only You. I flow in time, though not of time, a joy Which no diverting pleasures would destroy. You lead me not to comfort, but open spaces; Of shelter, security there are no traces. After all the thoughts, images that float During day, in and out of the office room, I return with delight Naked, vulnerable, to the Night.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: First Snowfall Just before you passed on, we were a solemn song; We knew you were dying, and the sorrow Accompanied us on that sidewalk all along. We were shopping; we looked at the window displays; The children's laughter only amplified woe; I couldn't accept you were married to snow. You had shared your passion as does red wine, And I assumed somehow that you were mine. But now that I see the first snowfall of the year, I must say much since then has been made quite clear. The first years carried cross and lament, But only because I gave them my consent. I didn't cry for you, not for you; I cried for myself, from possessiveness, fear. I watch the first snowfall: now there is no woe, For I see that, like you, I'm married to snow. It embraces no memories, but passionate death; My deeds will unfurl brilliantly from you Who is everywhere descending with loving breath.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: Gratitude to the Valley's Shadows Can a young woman's beauty stand alone? Does it not feed on, doesn't it shine the brighter, on account of the haggard, withered crone? Were it not for the crone and the seemingly never-ending garbage infesting the sea, would beauty like a pearl still be? Could the splendour of Van Gogh's Starry Night, could the force of Mozart's Requiem Mass be what they are, children of angels or skies, could genius retain its identity in the absence of mediocrity? Could there still be valour or the heroic state in the absence of demons to decapitate? What shall we say of life? Is it not a precious friend in light of the body having an end? What shall we say of love? Is never being apart the heavenly key for the human heart? Might separation at times feed the light of the stars and of the moon, separation offering a hundredfold boon of which togetherness may be dimly aware? Might physical presence offer but a scent, a whiff of that love death at times knows too well, death its sublime, its zenith embodiment? Valley's shadows, though my desires don't steep themselves in you, honour still envelops you.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: The Whole Artwork Anonymous One, The well-woven verse, the brilliant brushstroke, The singing sculpture, remarkable film - These are echoes, or so much apple peel, Sweet, yes, but far from the beauty You reveal. Reader, imagine if You will, a face, Beautiful in its proportions, cream-colored grace, Such as Venus herself might not possess, But befuddled or bemused, and bodiless. It might float like moon of white wine on the sea, Yet it gasps like an asthma patient without an inhaler, Never knowing even half of what it is to be. The whole artwork is no less than the entire Composition of a steady, fulfilled life: Each gesture, each word, each movement amid strife Skillfully rendered, each a poem of love, Or saber fencing with Your beams above.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: Shattered Mirror Anonymous One, The mirror once stood still as Your radiant smile. The stars' clarity bowed before Adam's eyes. Then it shattered somehow, and the fragments' guile Started playing out with scheming surprise. Each deemed itself a unique culture and nation; It dreamed forth different faiths and hierarchy; It dreamed forth good and evil; each person's station Competed with another, and the enemy Or one fought against was inevitably born. Someone posted up a flag, and a flag was torn Or burned by someone else; the crusader's mind, Sword-intent, tried converting the equally blind. Much later, there was the democratic crusade, The axis of evil parade and charade. What the axis of evil intimated was not That the good would flower forth, be gloriously brought Into the open, once light had vanquished dark, But only how destitute both sides are of Your spark. The source of chaos and madness is not a foreign kind, But the long-divided, fragmented mind.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: Picture of Me I do not see you. What you are may be like a star I see - that exploded years before, or like a crack of a door through which streams light of a candle I lit amid furniture and walls that I made, my memories appearing on the TV screen, interpretations of what I thought I heard, what I understood you to be and mean. I called you my wife, my daughter, my son, and what you turned out to mean to me floated within the orbit of my attachments, accommodating what I could see, my estimate of your potential powers more an estimate of what relates to my picture of me.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: You Sit, Face Averted Anonymous One, You sit, face averted, I'm in awe of you. The pond's lotuses are your other eyes. The crickets are your speech, the leaves your sighs. The corridor of fussing autumn trees, its space, And twilight jellyfish moon can't exhaust your grace. You have said bitter things when you were ill. Your sayings don't always have eagles' eyes. You sometimes drink, palm resting on the windowsill, With webbed words that won't let yesterday go. But you're still Eve before the fall, in spite of woe. I don't know you at all, though often mind Thinks it does, enamored as it is with memory. I have images of you, your being kind, unkind, Ferocious, a skilled lover, a song in bed, But these are not you right now, these are dead. I can't say who you are, so how can I compare You with others, think you are not quite as rare Or intelligent or beautiful as they? Only ideas, images are at play, And to take them to heart, as though they all Are you, would be Adam's plight after the fall.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: You're Lying There Still Asleep You're lying there still asleep, the sheets Below your knees, your skin poured smooth as coffee cream, Your curvatures of which hills themselves would dream. Our sheets and pillows are like geese Leaning against each other, and you're the Golden Fleece Now suddenly, as Jason's look alights on your form. Your beauty is the quiet storm That my temple would like to assail. I see your intense whirlpool drawing my spirit in... I don't care if there's something of the Siren in you; We all get destroyed in the end, let it be with you. You twitch slightly, the Golden Fleece may be waking you up; You rub your lips, you smile, you see my temple's up; You stroke it as though a cliff-triangle of cranes Were anticipating paradise in the sky, And I'm like a long-forgotten well that needs A beautiful woman to drink, who boils, who bleeds. What we do, my love, on this bed is not Some desperation, as though the worms outside In our garden were playing violins to our tumultuous tide, Mocking us with a death that's sure to come. What we have and do can but mock the sum Of inhibitions, repressions, anxieties. We will smash to atoms the presumptuous sun. We will look into our depths and be one.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: Amsterdam Park Anonymous One, The mature bloom of yellow afternoon Waved at us, and we entered Amsterdam park. September spoke softly to beach and sand dune, Passersby, deer, trees, red-berry bushes, till the Moon-Dark Of ourselves and aloneness silenced words, Scattering them as though they were a flock of birds. My friend and I - we walked and walked and some profound, Vast and alien meditation suffused each trail and mound. I could no longer say the rabbit stirred the grass Or deer leapt; any movement that would pass Was rather some anonymous force bending space In infinite ways; the green-glowing beetle was Your Face. We stopped by somewhere and only felt there was no mistake, That we had never been elsewhere or ever could be. I say now that we had come to some water With austere presences, each towering tree, But it was Aliveness before the world began: The horizon and shoreline were arcs, and in between Resounded ruffled echoes, cries from the Nothing-seen.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: The More and Emptiness Anonymous One, We can trace spiral staircases of ocean waves, Geometries of blue reaching for the sun. Eyes and universe can become good friends; The contact can unfurl order in all we do. If we can embrace that which is prior to thought, Stars will take off their haughty robes and bow; They'll be as loving as leaves are to the bough. But thousands upon thousands of years Have been transcended by only a few Because the More's been master in much that we do. The master has taught us a few things, yes; He may be a friend but is an enemy too, For he builds walls, and therefore emptiness And isolation are; hearts are heavily billed When the mind pursues, pursues, when mind is filled. The More convinces us there is something to become, That without becoming somebody, there's no progress. Yet the More's wife is Irony: mind's made numb, Repetitive, conflicted; She has an attractive dress That shimmers and glitters when She dances, But no gate of heaven is, only emptiness. The striving, striving is only more of the same. Without the heart's stillness, order's only a name.