2024-04-22 19:07:19
Already years ago, the media prophesied a poetry renaissance thanks to social networks. Now the so-called “instapoetry” is entering a new era dominated by video recitation. They are created by both amateurs and established artists. According to the poet Alžběta Stančáková, the genre returns to the people, who can freely laugh and cry over the work. “Who among us has the time to sit down and read, and who among us has the space to surround ourselves with books?” he asks.
She liked poetry and writing from an early age. In elementary school, she recited poems, voluntarily learning them by heart. Later in high school, she participated in recitation competitions and attended drama club. Kateřina Pokorná felt the urge to share her work on Instagram for a long time, but she was afraid of the reactions, so she postponed the plan for several years.
Creator Kateřina Pokorná alias Svojost. | Photo: archive of Kateřina Pokorná
“I was afraid that it would be more embarrassing than good. I had the first video on my phone for a month before I published it,” says the young woman, who goes by the nickname Svojost on the social network. Gradually, she started sharing videos where she recites her verses in a calm and quiet voice – for example, about how those social networks can be fake.
Success came already with the fourth published poem. The latter is a generational statement about millennials who are “healing with the trauma of their father’s father”. By liking her, the algorithm delivered her to many different bubbles. But Pokorná attributes the greatest weight to the fact that she caught the attention of moderator Leoš Mareš, who with 1.2 million followers is one of the largest accounts in the Czech Republic and reshared the video.
Not only the topics of her poems appeal to users, but also the color of her voice and specific delivery. The author herself perceives that the video speaks to the audience in a different way than the text. “The naturalness of the speech, the color of the voice and the format of the videos. I thought that I was reading rather than reciting, but the audience sees it as a recital and maybe that’s the naturalness. I’m not trying to make it look like that, it’s just the way it is is,” he reflects. When she wrote poems as captions under photos, she never experienced such success. “Everyone reads the text in a different tone, with the video you get it exactly as the author feels,” he thinks.
Poetry for Sensitive “Snowflakes”
Poet and bohemian from the Institute of Czech Literature of the Academy of Sciences Karel Piorecký researched Instagram poetry and does not consider it a separate genre. “It is rather a specific sphere of literary creativity, in which slightly different rules apply than in the conventional, serious, primarily published poetry,” he says.
According to him, the poems written as posts, which dominated the era when Instagram was mainly a platform for photos, and the video poems of today are significantly different. “Their main motto is evoking authenticity, as if the speaking poet were speaking directly to us, or even just for us. Almost the norm for these videos is a speech expressing strong emotional movement, often with tears in the eyes. Other times, the author tries to impress almost therapeutically – like someone who is there for others to help them in difficult situations. In contrast, a classically written instapoem acts as the essence of a cold aesthetic that is only interested in itself, chisels linguistic wit and adjusts the graphic form,” he compares.
According to him, social networks – especially TikTok – are “crammed with emotions”, so he is not surprised that poetry has found its place on them. Her renaissance has been talked about since 2017, when Indian-Canadian poet Rupi Kaur broke through on Instagram. Some appreciate that she came up with verses for the “new generation”, others blame her for banality.
“Every genre has its commercial sphere, superficial variants, kitsch. I don’t look for it, I don’t enjoy it in any way, but I’m not afraid of it either,” assesses cultural journalist from the Seznam Zprávy server and poet Jonáš Zbořil. According to him, social networks generally raise interest in literature, or at least make the discussion about it visible. Thanks to them, authors also have immediate feedback and thus motivation. In connection with Instagram and TikTok, there is mainly talk about the increasing attention of young people. “Sales of poetry collections rose a few years ago due to the covid pandemic. The world became such an incomprehensible place that young people returned to poetry to find solace in it,” interprets Zbořil.
Piorecký also confirms the growing interest of young people in poetry. “The fragility of the ‘snowflake generation’ is sometimes a target of ridicule, but its openness and sensitivity towards poetry at the same time shows the value of this fragility. The absence of classical institutions of literary life also contributes to the vitality of poetry on the networks. Communication here is very direct, its literary layer mixes with friendly conversation,” he explains.
Awkwardness is liberating
Natálie Schejbalová alias Tady Tali nevertheless decided not to share her poetry on social networks. During her teenage years, she started publishing her poetry on a literary forum, later she also started slam poetry. But she has the opposite impression of Kateřina Pokorná. It seems to her that this kind of poetic performance only works in the “offline world” between the performer and the audience, so she never tried to break through with it on Instagram.
Instead, she began experimenting with puns like “You know what the hardest time in a lifter’s life is? The mid-lift crisis.” Anyone who finds this humor embarrassing is getting it from the right end. Part of the audience loves her work with words, but some find it extremely awkward, which Schejbalová has made her brand. She explains that the haters who comment negatively on her videos only increase the reach of her posts. “There are several reasons why I quickly succeeded on Instagram. I chose the ideal format – it’s a short video with a simple and funny message. This is what people and the algorithm love. And then it’s original content instead of constantly repeating trends without my own input. Mentioned awkwardness also takes over. And above all, it’s liberating,” says Natálie Schejbalová, who now has almost 90,000 followers.
Literary scientist Piorecký confirms that those who understand the principle of the platform in question are successful. “They can recognize trends, join them, while retaining a part of their own individuality. Literary quality is not the way to measurable success here. But it’s the same in the world of printed literature – those who tap into the general taste have more fans,” he says . He adds that in the wilderness of instapoetry, the goals are different than in the institutionalized one: instead of the Magnesia Litera prize, authors strive for higher numbers of followers. According to the bohemian, these two worlds are not yet very connected.
Back to the roots
However, the poet Alžběta Stančáková, author of two poetry collections and holder of the Jiří Orten Prize, can be described as an exception that confirms the rule. Although she cannot boast of thousands of followers, she experiments with her lyrics, voice and video on Instagram in a remarkable way. Piorecký describes her contributions as “extremely high quality”.
Stančáková says that sharing her work on the Internet is natural for her and she has been doing it since she was 13 years old on her own blog. Then came the making of poetry videos on YouTube. “Then when I saw videos on Instagram that were technically imperfect, but funny and in some way human and entertaining, I simply picked up my already worn-out mobile phone and filmed myself reciting some of my eight verses from the skylight on a crowded street,” she says. “It brings poetry back to its essence – to loud recitation and also to the fact that it doesn’t have to be a matter of selected elites at all,” he adds.
He does not see the historical roots of poetry in solitary contemplation of the text, but precisely in public recitation. “That’s why poems often continue to spread thanks to public readings. And not everyone carries an artifact from these events in the form of a book publication. Why else? Who among us has time to sit down and read, when we’re always under stress, someone keeps calling us and we’re still dealing with something? And who has room to surround themselves with books when we’re all moving out of some rentals and living in temporary temporary housing?” he asks. “Stumbling upon a poem while scrolling through Instagram is one of the ways to bring poetry closer to people,” believes Alžběta Stančáková. According to her, poetry has always belonged to everyone, not just “ferns”, as she says.
It is not important “what the poet wanted to say”
According to journalist Jonáš Zbořil, “classical” poetry suffers precisely from the fact that we do not develop a positive relationship with it from school. He sees the main problem in the fact that in the pews we search for “what the poet wanted to say” and then fear that we will not understand the work. “We’re not used to it and it scares us,” he observes. He adds that a poem is more like music – understanding may not be important at all. “You either like it or you don’t. If we did this with poetry, it would stop annoying us,” he believes.
According to him, social networks create a favorable environment for beginning authors who would otherwise have nowhere to publish. Those who are interested in poetry, in turn, discover new talents more easily, and individual authors can establish contact with each other more quickly. But the journalist does not expect a complete revolution, as the media predicted with the arrival of Rupi Kaur.
Poetry will not become the best-selling type of literature thanks to the networks. It just might spread to a little more people, but again not by much, because algorithms interfere with its spread, Zbořil thinks. So it won’t change much in the offline world.
At the same time, he perceives that contemporary Czech poetry reacts much better and more dynamically to what today’s times bring. “People’s desire to write poems will probably never disappear. The fear of reading them will remain,” concludes Jonáš Zbořil.
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