Hashtags have always been a trend since the founding of Instagram. Creating a space for like-minded people and forming a community online gives a person a sense of belonging, and also helps them grow. Artists, authors and aspiring poets have created a community using the #PoetsOfInstagram which makes it easier for the audience to find their work and helps the poets connect with other poets across the globe, encouraging better content creation.
“I’ve been introduced to so many brilliant poets and read amazing poetry on their personal accounts, and it’s provided a convenient space to follow all their updates as well. The entire poetry community has grown and has prospered,” says Deeksha Verender, a city-based poet who belongs to the #PoetsOfInstagram community. She has her own poetry page which has a series of poetry called Reclamation. Even though she thinks that hashtags are abused to gain followers, she believes they are useful to find a community one would want to join. Belonging to a community and having an account to commit to provide poets with a regime to write and help their work gain exposure which is what makes Deeksha admire it greatly.
Jacqueline Williams, a poet featured by Terribly Tiny Tales twice, speaks about how this helped her convey her art pieces in an effective manner, and filtering her audience. “In spite of hashtags playing a crucial role, I do not believe that it helps one belong to a particular space as they don’t provide a thoroughly filtered list of items, which is ineffective,” she explains, adding, “By putting up my art for a limited audience, I don’t quite receive the response other people aim for. I do it solely because I love the difference in perspectives that my readers bring.” Jacqueline also feels that even though she does not believe in the notion of good art and bad art, poetry is somewhat misunderstood as some really good pieces are lost among mundane and obvious ones defy the goal of poetry to some extent.
Shantanu Anand, co-founder of the Airplane Poetry Movement is a spoken word poet himself. With equally active pages on Instagram, Facebook and YourQuote, APM is a community within. “In my opinion, #Poets OfInstagram may be a popular hashtag, anyone and everyone can use it, which is extremely counterproductive for real community-building. The key, I think, is to create niche hashtags, which can be used by a specific community, who share the same, specific goals. A great example of this is how Harnidh Kaur used the hashtag, #napowrimoxnidhscraps, to create a community of poets who wrote poems on a daily basis for Napowrimo.” He feel their goal is to build a community of poets, across platforms, which helps them get better at the craft by providing online workshops and conducting open mics to help them showcase their work.
Rahul Nair, an aspiring poet claims to have made a page out of the urge to build a habit as it binds one to work in time frames. “Instagram facilitates connecting, and helps generate better content and overall development,” says Nair.
Instagram communities are growing and even with the negatives, they serve as mediums to socialise with people with the same goals, and help create better content and a love for writing.
