Instapoetry and PoetryTok: Rethinking Poetry for the Digital Age
Poetry used to live in books and journals. Now, it’s fighting for space between influencer posts, hashtags, and TikTok trends. Instead of resisting this shift, award-winning poet and ĢƵ Literature Professor Kyle Dargan is asking: What if poets leaned in?
This semester, Dargan’s Advanced Poetry Workshop is taking a new approach to writing—rather than shunning social media, students are exploring how to write poetry for these digital spaces.
“Students are often seeking my guidance on how to penetrate publishing and find their audiences, and the reality is that the answers from 25 years ago simply do not suffice in the contemporary content environment,” Dargan says. “And part of being honest about how to grow in the field now is acknowledging that, as much as general "" is maligned, social media platforms are where the readers are, and we need to find artistic and sincere ways to enter the vertical theatre of the smartphone, where we indiscriminately consume the majority of our content today.”
Dargan says he had a eureka moment after reading a recent that explored how Netflix shapes our relationship to content as consumers and creators. Netflix screenwriters now craft dialogue where characters explain their actions, assuming viewers are likely distracted by their phones while "watching" television. “It all got me to thinking that if screenwriters are being asked to adapt in these ways, what does it mean for poets?”
Dargan asked his workshop if they wanted to focus on multimedia or more traditional poems—and they chose to take the ride with him on this new approach to poetry. Here are some samples of their work:
Jalisa Orellana Hardy
“Poetry workshop this semester has been super helpful in considering the relationship between poetry and social media. We've been working on shorter forms, still & moving images, and sound as a way to experiment with writing & modern tech. If we want people to read our poems, we got to go where the people are. Which is on their phones.”
Isabella Salcedo
“I enjoy how this class switches up a more traditional poetry workshop model! We're still craft-oriented in our thinking and discussions, but at the same time, we have the class time to be experimental and a little silly with what we're writing and the videos we make. I appreciate that balance.”
Tara Hollander
“The concept of social media poetry was really difficult to buy into, but I’m so glad I did. Prior to this class, I thought of my poetry as intellectual, societally challenging, and meant for delicate consumption. Here, I’ve been pushed to redefine poetry’s purpose and cater to new audiences. It’s like having new poetic muscles and this class trains them daily. Poetry can be short, silly, and inventive in order to capture an online viewer.”
Heaven Santiago
“As far as the class goes, I love it! It's made me consider the impact of poetry through modern mediums and how it can be enhanced from written verse. I really enjoy the class because I can be creative through video and audio formats, while also still having fun expressing myself through my written work.
