Instapoetry

Poetry posted on the Instagram social media platform, which is characterized by brief, visually appealing texts that often incorporate themes of personal identity, traumatic experiences, and emotional catharsis
Shweta Khilnani 2025-03-14

Explication

Instapoetry is the name given to a form of poetry which is circulated and read on social media platforms, primarily Instagram but also others like Twitter and Tumblr. On such platforms, poetry is consciously designed for circulation, resulting in a distinct literary and visual aesthetic. Instapoems are usually short, comprising a single stanza of four to six sentences with frequent line breaks; they are written in free verse and they often contain a complementary visual component.

A fairly contemporary literary sub-genre, Instapoetry emerged in the early 21st century when figures like Rupi Kaur and Lang Leave began sharing their poems on Instagram and acquired a massive fan-following. Their popularity led to a resurgence of interest in poetry as a genre: specifically, published poetry collections authored by Instapoets regularly occupied the top positions on bestseller lists. Thematically, Instapoetry often deals with issues of personal experience, pain, and trauma that are reminiscent of self-help narratives. They espouse an aesthetic of minimalism as they employ simple and sparse language and imagery. Rupi Kaur is one of the most famous Instapoets; she has close to 4.3 million followers on Instagram and her published collections of poetry including Milk and Honey and Sun and her Flowers reached the top of bestseller lists.

The popularity of Instapoetry sparked a lot of debate about its perceived lack of merit. It was ill-received by literary critics who denounced it as a base and commercialized form of poetry which is turning a noble art form into a mechanized industry (Bucknell 2020, Watts 2018). In a deeply critical essay, Rebecca Watts, an acclaimed poet, declared that such “artless poetry” (13) is characterized by a “denigration of intellectual engagement and rejection of craft” (13) and depends instead on a “cult of personality” (14). Similarly, popular literary publications also attacked Instapoetry (Leszkiewicz) and called it “cliched, banal, derivative, portentous, repetitive and manipulative” (Hodgkinson, n.p.). Watts’ essay triggered a series of responses which deemed her stance elitist. For instance, poet and researcher Katie Ailes argues that the qualities of honesty and authenticity which have become synonymous with Instapoetry deserve to be studied without condescension. Over the years, research around Instapoetry has diversified as scholars have debated its inclusion under the tag of e-literature (Berens) while others like JuEunhae Knox have studied it as the site of interactions between digital activism, algorithmic gatekeeping and commercialism.

While Instapoetry is a global phenomenon and a sizable part of it is written in English, there are more language and country specific variations of Instapoetry that have evolved over the years. Such poetry often incorporates local experiences and comments on contextualised political and socio-cultural issues.

See Also

• Digital Poetry - Employment of computer technology to create, present, or enhance poetic experiences beyond traditional print formats
• Twitterature - Literature created using the Twitter platform, characterized by brevity, immediacy, and the use of hashtags and links, exploring new forms of storytelling within the constraints of social media

Works Referenced

Ailes, Katie. “‘Instapoetry’ in the LRB: Towards a Better Criticism of Popular Poetics.” 21 May, 2020. n.p. https://katieailes.com/2020/05/21/instapoetry-in-the-lrb-towards-a-better-criticism-of-popular-poetics/

Berens, Kathi Inman. “E-Lit’s #1 Hit: Is Instagram Poetry E-Literature?”, Electronic Book Review, 2019, n.p. http://electronicbookreview.com/essay/e-lits-1-hit-is-instagram-poetry-e-literature/

Bucknell, Claire. “Instapoetry.” London Review of Books, vol. 42, no. 10, 21 May 2020, n.p. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n10/clare-bucknell/instapoetry

Hodgkinson, Thomas. “‘Instapoetry’ May Be Popular, but Most of It is Terrible.” The Spectator, 23 Nov., 2019. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/instapoetry-may-be-popular-but-most-of-it-is-terrible/

JuEunhae Knox, James Mackay & Anna Nacher. “Global Instapoetry.” European Journal of English Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, 2023, pp. 3-13, https://doi.org/10.1080/13825577.2023.2206452

Leskiewicz, Anna. “Why are we so worried about “Instapoetry”?” The New Statesman, 6 Mar., 2019, https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2019/03/why-are-we-so-worried-about-instapoetry

Watts, Rebecca. “The Cult of the Noble Amateur.” PN Review, vol. 44, no.3, 2018, 13-17. https://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?item_id=10090

Further Reading

Penke, Niels. Instapoetry: Digital Image Texts. 1st ed, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.

Knox, JuEunhae, and James Mackay, editors. Reading #Instapoetry: A Poetics of Instagram. 1st ed, Bloomsbury Academic, 2024.

Adeoba, ‘Gbenga. “Literary Imaginations from Below: Crowdsourced Verse and African Literature’s Digital Publics.” African Studies Review, Aug. 2024, pp. 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2024.70.

Boqo, Bella. “‘Let Black Girls Be’: The (Insta)Poetry of Upile Chisala and Its Resistance to Coloniality of Being.” European Journal of English Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, Jan. 2023, pp. 81–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/13825577.2023.2200431.

Khilnani, Shweta. “#Instapoetry in India: The Aesthetic of the Digital Vernacular.” European Journal of English Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, Jan. 2023, pp. 14–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/13825577.2023.2200416.

Yékú, James. “Digital African Literatures and the Coloniality of Data.” The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, vol. 9, no. 3, Sept. 2022, pp. 381–98. https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2022.19.

Soelseth, Camilla Holm. “The Media Ecologies of Norwegian Instapoet Trygve Skaug: Tracing the Post-Digital Circulation Process of (Insta)Poetry through Participatory-Made Instagram Archives.” European Journal of English Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, Jan. 2023, pp. 33–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/13825577.2023.2200423

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