Instapoets “have completely knocked all literary classics” from their perches on the bookstore shelves. “Homer, the Beowulf poet, Rumi, John Milton, and Dante — all poets who have been celebrated and studied by scholars for hundreds of years — have been bested by the powers of Instagram.” 

Kira Harkonen at Booknet Canada via Solway at PJMedia

Not if I can help it, they haven’t!

Solway’s piece is quite good. Read the whole thing as they say. I especially like this turn of phrase, “ideologically inspired ignorance.”

Answering “why one should see oneself reflected in a poem as a mark of poetic value, an attitude that betokens a state of puerile self-satisfaction,” he writes:

Rather, in genuine poetry one learns about oneself and others, comes to see and understand things about oneself or the world that one did not know or only dimly intuited — and in language that impresses itself indelibly on mind and memory. A poem is not a mirror but a window. 

Lately, nearly every time I post a crappy old poem, it get a handful of likes.

I sometimes skip over to these folks’ blogs. I’ll not be as harsh as Solway because I was once the mother of kids this age and I can tell you there are a lot worse things they could be doing besides writing bad poetry (not that my children ever did any of these things, mind you). But the navel gazing is astounding, as is the woe on me– poor dears.

“[B]ested by the powers of Instagram.” Seriously? Who the hell do you think you are?

I have nothing novel to offer on the subject of instapoetry, just wanted to bring the phenomenon and Solway’s article to your attention. Comments section is good– sometimes even funny!