By Emma Large.
When reflecting on previous avant-garde poets and movements, such as Allen Ginsberg and the New Age poets or Ezra Pound and the Modernist movement, it seems that new poetry is almost always divisive and controversial in its contemporary context. We often wonder why these works were such furious points of literary contention. I now want to be on the right side of history, embracing new art forms and styles with open arms. However, when I consider the new era of ‘Insta-poetry’, front-lined by poet Rupi Kaur whose work first shot to fame on the social media platform in approximately 2015, I am unsure which side I want to be on at all.
Kaur, self-styled a “poet, artist and a performer”, publishes and promotes her poetry on her Instagram account with a vast following of 4.5 million. She is known for her distinctly brief and fragmented poetic form, typed in all lowercase letters and without punctuation, and usually accompanied by a small sketch:
The debate about the value and nature of Kaur’s work has been particularly vociferous, and I have no desire to feed into a fierce pool of unnecessary criticism. However, whilst I understand her writing is emotionally impactful, I struggle to see how it can be called ‘poetry’; at least it seems less like poetry than the work of Ginsberg or Pound. Though it is not necessary for poetry to have form, I propose Kaur’s work lacks something that means it often fails to fulfil the conditions of real poetry. This deficiency’s exact nature seems elusive and contentious for all. While her work may be short, great Haiku poetry is only a few lines long; and though her words are decapitalised, this is also often the case for many contemporary poets. Hence, I pose the following questions: what exactly is Kaur’s writing lacking, and why does it matter?
I first contend that Kaur’s art lacks the unique specificity that provides most poetry it’s crucial emotional passion and substance, a point on which she has received a great body of criticism. Her work rarely provides a geographic or temporal location nor explicit context and abounds with generalised pronouns as she addresses the wider ‘you’ of her readers. This universality is amplified further by her poetry’s brevity. I provide these two examples from her 2015 collection ‘milk and honey’ for reference.
Kaur’s work is deliberately vague and imprecise for the purpose of being relatable to most people’s circumstances and contexts; the ‘all’ she depicts (or doesn’t depict) in the second poem is consciously undefined for this very reason. In the same way, her poem begins just after an event – ‘and’ – yet the exact occurrence remains unknown. The ‘you’ she addresses in the first poem could refer to anyone, thus easily translatable into a reader’s own life; and the ‘you’ addressed in the second is explicitly her audience. Though Kaur’s poetry thus appears to express passionate personal sentiment, at its bottom it does not entail anything individual or intimate at all; its emotion and personality is provided by her reader’s interpretation of it. This is arguably the key to Kaur’s popularity – her poetry can apply to everyone and anything, easily accessible and crafted for mass consumption.
Of course, I am hesitant to fall into the trap of poetic elitism. As Monika Hartmann suggests, Kaur’s work “democratises” poetry so that all can appreciate it; merely because something can be understood by all does not mean it is inherently bad or unworthy. Universality could be a vital asset of Kaur’s work. However, for me her artwork lacks the specificity and personal feeling that I think poetry – or at least captivating poetry – requires. Her poems do not make “monuments” out of “moments” (as Dante Gabriel Rossetti once wrote about sonnets), finding beauty and profundity in a singular place and time; but rather provide shiny all-purpose statements that could mirror any time and event in a reader’s life. Kaur’s poetry therefore may be reflective, but I certainly do not believe it is authentically personal.
Furthermore, the immediate transparency and directness of her work also means that it does not need much thought to understand. She rarely uses figurative language, and her metaphors and similes are instantly obvious or explained to the reader. Many of her poems likewise seem to be frank statements of fact and advice, absenting any literary features at all. This is an example from her newest collection ‘home body’:
I do not deny that this poem can be emotionally powerful for its readers; in fact, I think that Kaur’s frankness intensifies her work’s vitality and impact. However, I do also strongly believe that good poetry requires a little thought from the reader in its understanding; poetry needs to be interpreted and mused on rather than simply served up to its reader on a silver platter. Kaur’s work does not engage a reader’s thought in the process of reading it, as they do not need to discover its meaning: it is spooned directly and straightforwardly, straight into their mouths. Her poetry to me appears more like statements reflecting fact, or self-help advice; while perhaps powerful and motivating, you do not need to think to understand it.
At the core of my arguments thus far lies my conviction that Kaur’s work seems crafted more for immediate mass consumption than individual deliberate thought. Both the structural form of her poems – their brevity, the frequent line breaks, the decapitalization of her words for no apparent purpose – and her direct transparency of meaning and universality all suggest that her work has been crafted to be read quickly by many. While superficially her writing seems genuinely confessional, at its core it does not offer much real emotional substance; likewise, it does not inspire much deliberation on its meaning. Kaur’s work seems to reflect its creation in the Instagram-age, in which we are used to consuming art and media at a rapid speed and forming an opinion after only a quick glance. Her work is perfected for the Instagram feed. While I cannot deny its emotional power and inspiration, I do not think either that a lot of it can be classed as poetry. Without personal contextualisation and emotion or figurative language, I think Kaur’s writing consists instead of beautiful assertions and mirroring musings on reality. Its focus is on its reader rather than its writer. This is art fashioned for consuming rather than thinking. But, perhaps, in our intensely commercial environment, this is what art is becoming?
