Banal but Relatable, Why your Instagram Poetry Sucks

I attended a writer’s group the other day and observed an interesting inter-generational divide. A young man scrolled through his Instagram and read some of his poems out loud, prompting some very illuminating feedback.

As far as Instagram poetry goes, his poems were quite good. Most such “poems” read like a fourth grader wrote them, and not an especially bright one. This explains why so many semi-literate Youtube personalities have put out “poetry” collections in recent years. I blame the perception that the existence of free verse implies any jumble of words can be a poem. That, and their legion of lovesick and not particularly discerning fourteen-year-old followers.

After we were invited to give feedback, an older gentleman asked whether the author had deliberately avoided use of metaphor. He seemed rather taken aback at how bereft of metaphor and imagery the poems had been. I could have laughed out loud. Encountering an Instagram “poem” in the wild must be like stumbling across a painting without composition or colour. Poor fellow, did he think it avant-garde, or did it test his faith in humanity? Perhaps it was only my imagination, but I felt there was a faraway look in his eyes for the rest of the night, as if he’d receded into himself to ponder this predicament.

The older man — an erstwhile scriptwriter for the soap opera Neighbours— praised the younger man’s rhyming ability as skilful and unobtrusive. That much was true. And further, one of his poems contained a personification of madness... as a manic pixie dream girl. At least rhyme and personification are poetry techniques. I wonder how the older chap would have reacted to an Instagram “poem” without any of the elements of poetry i.e. the vast majority of them.

Instagram poetry is a strange beast to be sure; one that young people can’t seem to get enough off. Case in point: a younger woman said the poems were “very relatable”, and another remarked how she liked that it wasn’t “ornamental” or “floral” and that she didn’t have to — paraphrasing here — think deeply to guess at what the author was trying to say. My god, but that’s the fun of it, that’s the entire point; the joy of a poem is in its unravelling.

It all boils down to that one word: relatable. It alone explains the popularity of all those narcissistic, navel-gazing platitudes posted on Instagram. Here’s an Insta poem it took me three seconds to whip up. Brace yourself, it’s the equivalent of a four-year old finger-painting a $15 million dollar “masterpiece”. (I’m convinced most modern art is the set up to a “…the Aristocrats!” punchline, existing only to launder money and enable tax breaks. The lower classes paying good money to squint at fruit stapled to walls is just the cherry on top… but that’s a rant for another time.) Without further ado:

“The hardest part of letting go / Is knowing you’d be / Happier without me”

Oh my… so deep. Did that speak to your soul? Now let me spend longer looking for the appropriate shade of fuchsia for the background than I did writing the damned thing. Let me put more effort into the long string of hashtags to go with the poem than the poem itself. Oh boy, it sure is a statement with random line breaks. I forgot to write it all in lower case, so that’s most uncool of me. But at least it’s relatable. Personal. Unfiltered (this is code for “editing is hard”). Honest.

I’ll tell you what it’s not though — poetry.

Whereas poetry seeks to render the specific universal, Instagram “poetry” deals only in the banal. Fortunately, we’re hewn from the same stuff, all of us neurotic monkeys worried the other monkeys won’t want to share their bananas with us — so it’s relatable. And that’s the coin of the realm in the Land of Bare Arses. And snaps of post-workout pecs, and vacation Piña Coladas. Honestly, these “poems” are probably the most highfalutin’ things you’ll find on Instagram; perhaps I should be a little more circumspect in discouraging them.

Instagram's "finest"

Below are three poems by high-earning Instagram poets, so you can judge them on their own, er, merits:

he isn’t coming back

whispered my head

he has to

sobbed my heart

— rupi kaur

My love,

you have

too many smiles

left in you

to be so sad

— Atticus

BEST

everyone tells me I deserve better.

i know i deserve better.

but i don’t want better.

i want you.

— Gabbi Hanna

I’d say Rupi Kaur and Atticus are the most well known Instagram poets, while Gabbi Hanna is yet another Youtube personality cashing in, so I think they’re quite representative of this particular publishing phenomenon. Note the arrested development angst, lack of capitalisation, and random line breaks in their “poems”.

So, what's wrong with Instagram poetry?

The other reason I’d hesitate to call Instagram “poems” poetry, is the lack of artistry. They’re the written-word equivalent of a painting by a toddler (or the fine arts graduate who’s only capable of painting like a toddler). There’s nothing more worthy of a sneer than people proud of their lack of effort and skill because they think it makes their doggerel more “authentic”. That’s right, all your bugs are features, never work to improve upon the perfection that you are. You are honestly expressing your “traumas” and so no one is allowed to say anything which might contribute to your hurt feelings.

Instagram “poets” rarely let their creativity shine by working within the constraints of the poetry medium. Which is only natural, as they don’t understand the medium in the first place. Instagram “poets” aren’t aware of the rules, and so have made no conscious stylistic choice to break them. These self-styled “poets” have probably never read an actual poem. Or a book, for that matter. But props where props are due; some of them understand the medium of Instagram well enough to have made a boatload of money.

These pretend poets won’t bother with meter, and they sure as hell won’t bother learning any technique. For this reason, Instagram “poems” rarely feature alliteration, imagery, metaphor, conceit, rhyme, rhythm, enjambment, pantoum — and other words the author didn’t know until a few seconds ago. This has a parallel in modern music, where songs increasingly have a cool beat but no melody. Are we entering some minimalist phase or is it a dumbing down of the culture?

Frankly, you can’t have art without artistry.

Art makes you think, it makes you feel, it destroys you and rebuilds you in its image. It changes you. Instagram “poetry” merely validates you in the same lukewarm way finding out other people enjoy your favourite weird sandwich combination does. Or learning that you’re not alone in winning imaginary arguments in the shower. The way one Instagram “poem” makes you feel is indistinguishable from the way the next one will make you feel.

And therein lies the problem.

“When do you really have your own money? When you can buy drugs for your friends — that is, when you can afford to open an aperture on the inhuman for someone other than yourself without resorting to direct violence or an art gallery.” — Jon Roffe, “Seduce or Die”

A great poem can make you grieve for something you never had, bask in a love you’ve never shared, drown in a sorrow in whose waters you’ve only ever dipped your feet. You’re just one person with a singular lifetime but poetry can help you transcend the limitations of flesh and flout the natural laws. It’s magic. Poetry allows you to sample the highest highs and the lowest lows of which the collective human soul is capable. In contrast, an Instagram “poem” is just insipid whining taking up several more lines than it ought.

In short, Instagram “poetry” demands nothing of the writer or reader, and that’s why it offers the latter so little in return.

Is Instagram poetry merely a misnomer?

Despite what my rant may suggest, I made my peace with Instagram poetry rather quickly. (Well, over the course of a one-hour walk to St Kilda pier, complete with talking out loud and deranged arm flapping.) There’s no doubt something appealing about these… idle musings. When you start to think of these poems as merely musings, they’re suddenly a lot less objectionable. It feels less like the author is finger-painting the lily and gilding the turd, and more like they’re being upfront and dropping all pretensions of being a poet. Perhaps Instagram poetry is merely misnomer rather than a crime against humanity?

There’s no question that some folk — particularly the younger generation who believe the entire world is an extension of their therapist’s office — desire to both inflict these egocentric musings on others, and find their presence in their social media feed to be of comfort. Of course, all writing is egocentric, but its saving grace is that it’s informative and entertaining at the same time.

Heck, I’ve written a couple of “poems” that are nothing more than writing therapy. That sort of thing used to be relegated to the tear-stained pages of one’s diary, but hustle culture tells us to wring a few bucks out of anything and everything. I must admit, Instagram “poetry” is a diverting, and sometimes even cathartic, pastime. Ah, but now I’m damning with faint praise and so I really ought to wrap this up.

Brain bleach

Here’s an actual poem so you can rinse your brain out after that dreck I exposed you to earlier (sorry):

This Be The Verse

By Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don’t have any kids yourself.

The author might be more crude and vehement in expressing this sentiment than you’d be — it might not be relatable, in that sense. Or even palatable. But it’s good. You’ll mull over the contradiction of “soppy-stern”, turning it over in your mind as if it were a pebble, smooth on one side, rough on the other. You’ll picture “fools in old-style hats and coats” in a way that’s uniquely your own, perhaps lending a familiar limp or weathered face to that sartorial synecdoche. The inevitability of inter-generational trauma when likened to a deepening coastal shelf will gnaw at you and demand to be digested.

True poetry makes you think; it has the power to shape you... as if it were the wind and waves, and you the crumbling coastal shelf.