e-books and new media: the Renaissance of poetry
The phenomenon of instapoets
“I was amazed at the extent of his fame, his works were nowhere to be found then, he was disapproved by the party, but if the populace loves poetry, they love the poet. And no one loves poetry more than a Russian." These are the words that Boris Pasternak puts into Yevgraf's mouth, speaking of the funeral of his brother Yuri Zhivago, the doctor-poet who is the protagonist of his masterpiece. The Russian nation loves poetry above all else. The same could be said of another large and young nation, that of the web which loves poetry like little else. This supreme literary genre has struggled in the age of mass media to reach the general public. Major publishing has effectively set it aside, with some notable exceptions, relegating it to a sort of Indian reservation. The big publishing houses have published and are still publishing few titles of poetry. Fortunately, the new media have come to the rescue of poetry. An unexpected number of amateur poets, called instanpoets (from Instagram), are churning out books of poetry that are starting to appear on the bestseller lists. Some sell into 6 figures and are already in the charts after a few weeks.
The renaissance of poetry was told by Alexandra Alter, one of the most influential people in the global publishing industry, in the NYTimes in an article we translated for our readers. The translation from English is by Ilaria Amurri.
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The unicorns of poetry
"Thanks everyone, it's cool to be here," he told the 150 people who packed in on a Friday night Barnes & Noble to celebrate the release of his new collection di haiku. public, mostly healthier skin and especially female, it was literally delirious.
Until seven years ago, Gregson (34) made ends meet by doing the freelance copywriters and shredded copy on sports equipment, hair products, and medical imaging devices. Today, thanks to his 560.000 follower of Instagram and Tumblr has become theliterary equivalent of a unicorn: a famous poet who sells books a galore.
Gregson belongs to a new generation di poets young and digitally crafty that thanks to their faithful follower were catapulted in rankings di bestseller, in which poetry collections have always been rather rare, without winning literary prizes and without ever having attended university writing courses.
But it is rough style which makes it so Special these verses, which seem almost shreds of the pages of a diario. THE amateur poets of the network reach hundreds of thousands of readers, attract the attention of agents literary, curators and publishers and they are turning the reputation of poetry itself, which has long been seen as an elevated art with little popular appeal.
The instant poets
Probably the rapid rise of insta poets it won't upset the high literary spheres too much, nor critics or purists, who certainly scoff at those who mix photos with poems, but at least the phenomenon could redefine a perception now well established that sees this art form as a creative medium cleanly decline.
Chasers of the Light, The first collection di Gregson, has become a bestseller negli United States, where has sold more than 120.000 hard copies (to get an idea of the extent of these numbers just think that Faithful and virtuous night di Louise glück, which won the National Book Award for poetry last year, has sold just 20.000 copies).
It seems that the new book di Gregson, All the words are yours, is going just as strong (for now it's out with 100.000 hard copies). Many of his haiku are short reflections on love and nostalgia and have already collected thousand di Comments online: "I want my days to be full/and my nights saturated/with the sound of you", recites a poem that has received 8.770 on Tumbrl. Recently the collection has risen in third position of standings di Nielsen of the 10 best-selling poetry titles in the US, higher than Dante, Homer, Séamus Heaney and Khalil Gibran, but Gregson isn't the only digital revolutionary on the list. Indeed, according to Nielsen, 3 among the 10 books di poetry currently most sold in the United States they are collected di young writers who have built a following on Tumblr and Instagram, including milk and honey di Rupee kaur e Memories di Lang Leav.
Lang Leav from the antipodes
La leave, who lives on New Zealand, began to post his verses on Tumblr in 2012 and was quite surprised when they started bouncing around quickly on the web: “I don't know how I came up with the idea of putting my poems on the net, as many are quite personal, but in the end they were appreciated and people started sharing them on social media.
Her follower, which are now about a million, they begged her to put her poems together in a paper collection, so in 2103 she self-published Love & Misadventure, which he sold 10.000 copies within one month. Then she found a agent and soon received aoffering From one casa editrice, Andrews McMeel, who has published three of his books. Moral of the story: his poems, which explicitly talk about love, sex, pain and betrayal, have sold more than 300.000 copies: “Take me to a place where I can feel something – I want to give my heart away”, is the beginning of a poem. Another says: Promise / I love you, Yes–/ you have my word./ You have all my words”.
È difficult to determine exactly what it is powered la popularity of poetry su Tumblr and Instagram, sites that are usually teeming with celebrity selfies and cute pet pics, but this one too the case, as for many viral phenomena inexplicable, they are in between the Kardashian sisters.
A poem retweeted by Khloe Kardashian, one of the two social media star sisters, received 420 likes and sealed its author's immediate success.
Last fall Khloé Kardashian ha shared closure a poetry by Lang leave, its Instagram, where he has more than 35 million followers. That poem, in which the author speaks in the first person of the period after the end of a love affair, was well received 419.000 like.
It was always thanks to Khloé Kardashian that hordes of readers discovered Robert M. Drake, from Miami, whose fan club also includes Kylie and Kendall Jenner Kardashian, as well as rappers Ludacris and Kicki Minaj. Drake, who's real name is Robert Macias, has 1,3 million di follower and his printed collections have a large following of passionate readers. In the last year sold about 160.000 copies of the self-published collections Black Butterfly e Beautiful chaos: "I'm still shocked that I sold so many in such a short time and on top of that we're talking about poetry, a genre that people don't pay much attention to," said Macias, a poet who often composes short lines, intense and inspired.
The stage of the network
The YouTube channel, Button Poetry, where every day a poet reads his own verse, gathers more than 350.000 viewers.
Be careful though, the rebirth of poetry è anything but safe. According to a report by the National Endowment for the Arts (an American funding agency for art projects) the percentage of readers Americans who claim to read poetry è dropped from 12% in 2002 to 6,7% in 2012, but at least the death spiral seems to be slowing down slightly.
Poetry Button, channels YouTube where the authors recite their poems, has almost 430.000 subscribers and the Academy of American Poets reaches more than 350.000 readers with its “Poem-a-day” digital poetry series.
Some successful poets argue that the interest shown by social media towards poetry has benefited everyone a bit, not just the newcomers, and that is opening new paths to authors who would have struggled before to get noticed from publishing houses.
“There are no more 'temple guardians' to keep you in check,” explains Don Share, editor-in-chief of Poetry magazine. "There network it's a great stage for all those poets who otherwise would have been relegated to a marginal role in the eyes of mass culture”.
Gregson, for example, started when he was twelve. He scribbled when he was distracted at the school desk, but he never thought about transform his hobby in a craft. "In the world of publishing, writing poetry is a risky choice", he too realizes it, in fact when he started writing Post poetry su Tumblr, seven years ago, he did it just to share them with friends and relatives: "I've always seen writing as a way to ease mental pressure".
Then, at some point, gods perfect strangers they started to to comment its verses, from the crudest and confessional-like, sometimes erotic love poems to philosophical odes to the natural world. The public has magnified visibly and some of Gregson's most ardent admirers have tattooed his verses on themselves and have posted the photos on the Internet.
Currently the Montana web poet stands preparando a third collection, but is also dedicated to calendars, tickets and a children's book. “She proved to everyone that poetry isn't all that inaccessible,” explains her literary agent Rachel Vogel.
This was clearly understood at the Manhattan meeting, where Gregson brilliantly answered all questions and did book signing for an hour and a half. A girl flattered him saying "I've always followed you and being here is a very strong emotion", then they wanted to know what his favorite animals are (bumblebees and whales) and asked him to explain his creative process, which according to him it is not at all complex: “You see everything I think. If I think something, I write it and when I write it, I'll show you”.
