[Orwn Acra]

To maybe help Mark articulate his thoughts, at the risk of reading them totally wrong, I will point out that there are many, many Instagram poets who write exactly like Kaur. Her talents are not in literature but in marketing, in which she is kind of ingenious; literature is one of the three media by which she markets herself, the other two being her doodles and her Instagram posts. Since all of us here are interested in literature, we are speaking mainly of her poems, but I think to criticize her poems as if they were literature, instead of merely medium, is to miss their point rather spectacularly.

Maybe it is like a calligrapher who writes dreadful poems not because he cares about poetry, but because he needs something to write to show off his calligraphy. Kaur is a social media presence--that is her art form--and the poems are a means to that presence. The presence is the point, not the poetry.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Originally Posted by Orwn Acra

To maybe help Mark articulate his thoughts, at the risk of reading them totally wrong, I will point out that there are many, many Instagram poets who write exactly like Kaur. Her talents are not in literature but in marketing, in which she is kind of ingenious; literature is one of the three media by which she markets herself, the other two being her doodles and her Instagram posts. Since all of us here are interested in literature, we are speaking mainly of her poems, but I think to criticize her poems as if they were literature, instead of merely medium, is to miss their point rather spectacularly.

Maybe it is like a calligrapher who writes dreadful poems not because he cares about poetry, but because he needs something to write to show off his calligraphy. Kaur is a social media presence--that is her art form--and the poems are a means to that presence. The presence is the point, not the poetry.

This is true. Do you think a social media presence can be taken up as a poem even if the actually literature riding alongside isn't good poetry? Are people making their own poems out of the combination of her presence, her words, and their experiences? Or do you see the only manipulation in the "success" of her marketing? I think the archetypes she is whistling up don't stay in the cup, they spill. Her popularity vs. other instagram poets is manipulated and maybe undeserved, I guess. But once the work is in the air, is that all you see in it?