What I Learned My First Month as an “Instapoet”
Growing up, my grandparents had more books than anyone I knew. I was always eager to spend the night at their house and pick out a new book to read. It wasn’t long before I realized that I had my own stories to share, and I spent most of my grade school years writing stories and poems.
As I got older, I wrote for pleasure less and less, and eventually I stopped altogether. Until I discovered Astrology. Astrology gave me a reason to write again — it gave me something I was excited to study and share with others. Without astrology, who knows when (or if) I would have written anything again.
Above everything else in this world, I am a writer…a poet.
I have a desire to share my thoughts, emotions and ideas with others, although most of these ideas are more personal and more difficult to share. To break myself out of my own box, I decided that I was going to write “for myself” everyday in 2018. And with the success of modern instapoets like Rupi Kaur (author of Milk and Honey), what better place to hold me accountable than Instagram? What I’ve learned has been both surprising and comforting.
There is a huge, supportive writer’s community on Instagram. In a weird way, Instagram is the Medium of poetry. Whether you tag your photos or not, other poets will find you. There is a lot of interaction and the writers here are extremely supportive of each other.
We are all poets. Poetry is the simplest way for humans to express emotion via written words. Poems don’t have to be long, they don’t have to be short, they just need to convey genuine emotion. It’s pretty ironic — on a social media site labeled vain and artificial, there is a large community of people baring their souls.
Writer’s don’t sleep. If you are looking for exposure, post at night. I can not emphasize this enough. There is a huge difference in engagement if you post between 9am-9pm versus 9pm-12am. I was shocked…almost. Writers are night owls. We stay up late into the night, thinking about our day and what we didn’t get to say. Or maybe we think about tomorrow and what we’re going to say. Either way, we stay up late and think. And write.
People love writers. This was unexpected. My Instagram has zero pictures of myself (aside from a profile picture) so I was shocked to receive unwarranted DMs. Most are just a “Hi” or kind words about my writing, but some (men) feel the need to go…further. Still — I had no idea that people could fall in love with only words.
Poetry is NOT dead. This was the biggest shock of all. There’s this idea that poetry is somewhat of a lost art. Who even reads poems anymore, right? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong! I love poetry, so why wouldn’t others? Instagram has proven to me that there is a space for poets in this world, something I wasn’t sure of before I started. It is the perfect medium for short, digestible emotion. My conclusion — dare I say it? — Instagram has revived poetry.
When I’m not writing poetry, I am busy with astrology readings and reiki sessions. Interested in a reading? I am offering 10% off readings until the end of February — use code FEB10 at checkout❤
