‘How I accidentally became a poet through Twitter’
Again, it was well received. More retweets. More new followers. And so my career as social media poet began.
I had never intended to be buy canada goose jacket a poet. A poet canada goose clearance to my mind was someone of intensity, a serious type, the kind of person you wouldn’t want to get trapped in a kitchen with at a party (if poets received invitations to parties at all, that is).
buy canada goose jacket cheap I vaguely remembered the term “iambic pentameter” from my schooldays. I knew roughly how many syllables there were in a haiku, and I had canada goose deals a rudimentary grounding in the poetry of Eliot and Larkin although my true heroes were Roger McGough and Ogden Nash. buy canada goose jacket cheap
cheap Canada Goose Find out moreThis is an edited buy canada goose jacket cheap version of The Social Media Poet, part of Radio 4’s Four Thought series catch up on BBC iPlayer Radio cheap Canada Goose
I had never intended to waste my days on social media either. Of Twitter, I was, as with so many other things, a late adopter. I had only joined it in order to understand what it was that those people at work, invariably younger than I, would talk canada goose coats about so irritatingly in meetings.
So I joined, and like many other first time tweeters, those early months were spent in writing bad jokes and Canada Goose Jackets puns which echoed in canada goose coats on sale the ethereal emptiness.
canada goose clearance sale But something else had begun to bloom in the background I had started to talk to strangers on Twitter (some of whom were very strange) and read about the things that interested them or made them laugh or annoyed or sad or angry. canada goose clearance sale
And almost nothing, it seemed, made Twitter angrier than bad grammar. For every badly spelt, poorly constructed tweet, there were a hundred unreconstructed grammar pedants leaping in to point out the mistakes.
canada goose black friday sale So I started writing poems about these heinous crimes, the misapplication of a semi colon, the rule about i before e, and of course, that most controversial of all the punctuation marks, the Oxford canada goose comma and even gently mocked the grammar enforcers themselves: canada goose black friday sale
canada goose uk shop I began to receive feedback on my poems from Twitter users. A typical response Canada Goose Outlet was: “I hated poetry at school. I never thought I’d find myself retweeting a poem.” canada goose uk shop
uk canada goose Or: “I don’t really like poems but I like whatever it is you do” uk canada goose
Canada Goose Parka I am still unsure as to whether these are compliments or not. But it Canada Goose Parka did open my eyes to how poetry is still viewed with suspicion by a large part of the populace, in spite of the undoubted resurgence in popularity it has seen in recent times. Canada Goose Parka
canada goose coats We see signs of that new interest in poetry all around us the growth of performance poetry and the spoken word movement, poetry slams, workshops for aspiring poets, the soaring membership of societies at the national and regional level, the rise of self publishing, and a new generation of inspiring younger poets, such as Kate Tempest and George the Poet, taking the form to newer audiences. canada goose coats
canada goose store But move outside of that growing community, the impression remains that poetry in general terms is difficult, almost deliberately obtuse and obscure, frequently dull, and willfully uses words such as “crepuscular” or “obsidian”. canada goose store
Canada Goose Outlet Small wonder that the business of publishing poetry books is a fraught one few titles sell in substantial quantities, and most general commercial publishers or literary agents have turned their backs on poetry. Canada Goose Outlet
Books are published by specialist presses with short print runs or self published. Poetry sections in bookshops appear to shrink by the month. There’s a lot of poetry about but it seems few people want to buy it.
But social media shows us that a broader, more democratic appetite for poetry exists, after all.
In June, as the terrible news came in of the murder of MP Jo Cox, the Poetry Society a UK organisation with the aim of promoting the study, use and enjoyment of poetry shared on Twitter The Mower, one of Philip Larkin’s later poems.
Canada Goose sale The poem concerns the death of a hedgehog, jammed up against the blades of his lawnmower. The poem is mournful and melancholic but also compassionate and powerful. Canada Goose sale
It travelled around Twitter at lightning speed, bursting out from the bubble of cheap Canada Goose The Poetry Society’s followers to find a much broader audience. It was re shared over 3,500 http://www.canadagoosesalesus.com times and reached a readership of half a million readers in just a few days.
canada goose It’s a piece that does what brilliant poetry does best it moves us, it gives voice to thoughts and feelings that we ourselves may struggle to articulate, it’s personal and yet universal. canada goose
But also, 37 years after it was written, it is relevant. It’s Poetry as Current Affairs. The Poem as Social Commentary. And that can be the power of social media for poetry a place to share words at the point of need. It is lent an immediacy other outlets for poetry do not have it is not trapped in the pages of a book on a shelf, nor waiting to be recited at an event taking place two weeks next Thursday. It’s there where we need it and when we need it.
cheap canada goose uk But the relationship between poetry and that broader social media audience is more than an immediate, articulated response to tragedy. A platform such as Twitter can also serve as an endless source of ideas for poets. cheap canada goose uk
uk canada goose outlet Without Twitter’s hashtag, the symbol for what is trending at any moment in time, I would never have known about Penguin Awareness Day or National Stationery Week. Last year, the stars aligned and three celebrations occurred canada goose store all on the same day World Philosophy Day, International Men’s Day and World Toilet Day, giving rise to this short piece Poem for International Men’s Toilet Philosophy Day which combines all three: uk canada goose outlet
There are other lessons for poets to learn from social media about how to keep their writing interesting and relevant to modern audiences. The ways in which we consume content have begun to change.
canada goose uk outlet Any time spent wallowing in the mire that is social media shows canada goose outlet how visual the information is with which we now engage yes, there are words aplenty, but there are pictures and videos, too. canada goose uk outlet
The barrage of information that is thrown at us means that plain words on a page are becoming less likely to be read. People struggle to find the time, inclination or powers of concentration to wade through pages of dense text. Words find themselves in competition with pictures. Canada Goose online And less is often more.
But poets shouldn’t feel threatened by this in a social media setting rather, it canada goose clearance sale gives us the opportunity to think about form as well as content, and how the presentation of a poem might canada goose black friday sale enhance or complement the words which accompany it.
I began to experiment with the visual aspects of poetry, when I wrote a poem in the shape of a Christmas tree. The poem itself was about how I had neglected to water my words, and I illustrated this by having words spread out around the base of the poem, like pine needles scattered over a carpet.