The Ecocritical Instapoet: Digital Media Ecofeminist Poetry
In recent years, a new poetry genre has emerged, currently known as Instapoetry, and its chief practitioners are often young females (Pâquet 2019). Instapoetry has many characteristics influenced by the nature of the Instagram platform on which it is published, such as its brevity and its inclusion of visual effects with the text. However, its resemblance and links to older forms of modernist and post-modernist poetry are undeniable; such as its use of symbolism, expressionism, its move away from tradition, and its sense of activism. The “retrofitting” (Chasar 2020) of modernist poetic themes and formats for a digital medium opens up new possibilities for new ways of thinking. I suggest that this new format which can be seen as restrictive, allows for an opening and for new modes of subjectivity. Instapoetry engages feelings and ideas through an inclusive approach and that is essentially what gives it its potential as an activist and educational facility. Through its penchant for activism, Instapoetry engages in a metamodernist global consciousness shift, which Luke Turner defines as a move away beyond postmodernism and an “emergence of a palpable collective desire for change” (Turner 2015).
Female Instapoets often employ nature motifs in their Instapoetry, however, the nature motif is portrayed as something that connects, contrary to the restrictive sense often applied by patriarchal systems. In order to break away from a simplistic reading of Instapoetry as a poetic genre completely closed in by algorithms and word limits and to show the openings that this poetic genre allows, I suggest a new name “Digital Media Ecofeminist Poetry.” I attempt a qualitative methodology, through close reading of various Instapoems by female Instapoets, to demonstrate their nuanced use of form, language, and visuality and I examine the ways in which the digital medium influences this new form of poetry.
Keywords: Instapoetry, Digital Media, Ecofeminism, Metamodernism, Rupi Kaur, Poetic Sympathies, Activism, Environmental Humanities, Instagram.
Yara Gawrieh Ekmark
Stockholm University, Sweden
Yara Gawrieh Ekmark is a scholar and writer with a passion for contemporary literature and digital media. She holds a Master of Arts degree in English from Stockholm University and has participated in exchange studies in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, where her literary fiction manuscript was nominated for the Janklow and Nesbit Bath Spa Prize in 2021. With an academic background in English literature and a focus on creative writing, Yara’s research interests revolve around the intersection of technology and creative literary expression, particularly focusing on the transformative impact of social media platforms like Instagram on modern poetry and literary communities. Yara Gawrieh Ekmark’s work explores the evolution of Instapoetry as a popular form of artistic expression, delving into its cultural significance, modes of engagement, and the ways in which it opens for new modes of thinking.
