Letters: Poetry Was Never Endangered
Readers weigh in on the rise of the “Insta-poet.”
How Instagram Saved Poetry
With the rise of “Insta-poets,” Faith Hill and Karen Yuan wrote recently, today’s poets are no longer just writers—they’re entrepreneurs.
As a small-press poetry publisher, I don’t think Instagram has “saved” poetry. I think it is changing one facet of it: easily digestible, short and simple. There have always been haiku and other short forms in poetic cultures for people willing to read a book; it’s just that now, some (mostly young) people have noticed these mottos, aphorisms, or sayings in the visual, swift world of social media. Good for them, but it does nothing to advance the kinds of books I’m publishing. I think there’s room for both. Poetry will go on in many forms whether or not it sells millions of copies of books—and we all
