Redefining literary space : instagram poetry, nayyirah waheed, and the rise of the sub-genre online.

Abstract

Poetry is circulating on several social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Poets on Instagram, specifically, are taking part in a new cultural trend. The chain of writers online are bringing the genre of poetry to an environment that is built to share personal or visual information about any given topic that any online user wants to include on their account. This thesis project aims to examine a new cultural phenomenon on social media that includes circulation of a specific literary genre online: poetry. Instapoets’ presence on social media platforms such as Instagram, including their followers and readership, has expanded over the years as they have started to increase their posts and publish books regularly. This research focuses on an African-American poet called nayyirah waheed and uses her as a case study to discuss how Instagram can be perceived as a literary space and Instagram Poetry as a literary genre. waheed acts as a key example that portrays how Instagram, although a visual space, can become an active literary one where discussions on race, gender and oppression can occur. In engaging in aspects of language, slavery and vernacular traditions, this research situates waheed’s work in African-American historical factors. This thesis argues that platforms that were originally a visual and creative space can also become a literary and creative one. Writers, especially poets who repetitively post their work on Instagram after the publication of their books, are transforming a mostly visual space into a vernacular space. In this project, the main focus is to enter a discussion in which I can explore other scholars’ definitions of literary space in order to apply it to a new context and create my own definition. So, in studying aspects of genre and literary space, I will use nayyirah waheed, as a case study, to make my claim about Instagram.