Twitter Poetry
Inua Ellams
My name is Inua Ellams. I'm am author, writer of poems, plays and prose. I am also an avid user of the social networking platform ‘Twitter’ and a few years ago, started thinking of ways to to use it interactively, in the generating of ideas, the writing and sharing of poetry. I began by tweeting a series of 'conversations with dumbbells' from trips to the gym, which led to a 6 episode twitter-play, and climaxed in a epic battle: 'INUAMAN versus Issac Newton and the evil forces of Gravity.' It was all purely in good fun, but when I realised that a few followers of mine would rush to work early and gather with their colleagues around mytwitter feed to read the episodes, I realised I was on to something.
I thought about the poetry workshops I had attended and how the tutors would often critic and break down a poem into structural turning points. Returning home, I would try to write a poem along the turning points and realised that anyone could write a similar poem, but with entirely different results gives our varied personalities and life experiences. I began sharing this method of writing with fellow writers and workshop participants and the more results I saw, the more I thought of a reaching a wider writing audience, simultaneously writing the same poem, and Twitter is such a perfect mode of communication.
The character limit forces the instructions and structural turning points to be as direct and clear as possible. Because Twitter streams in real time, I could also make certain that the instructions were shared within a given time, which structured my non-digital writing workshops, and also brought a sense of excitement and immediacy which I enjoy and look for in the writing and reading of poetry. But the Twitter Poetry exercise isn’t about the quality of the poem. It isn’t about the length of the poem, or how well the turning points are followed. It is about community, participation and multi functionality. It is about engaging with those who think of poetry as a higher art form, something that exists in silent dusty rooms, sounds a certain way and must be written a certain way. The exercise demystifies the process of writing, and to do so, knowing that thousands of people are doing so simultaneously, creates a comfortable bubble, a kind of safety net in which to write.
It is widely known that more people write poetry than read poetry. Imagine if any other industry functioned this way: if more people made cars than bought cars. It would be impossible and entirely unsustainable a business model, but this is the poetry model. The twitter-poem engages this problem - and I think it is one - because it generates poetry, at the same time generates the need to read poetry. Participants of the workshop are usually curious about how other writers fared in following the instructions and make time to read and compare their work to others.
My name is Inua Ellams. I'm am author, writer of poems, plays and prose. I am also an avid user of the social networking platform ‘Twitter’ and a few years ago, started thinking of ways to to use it interactively, in the generating of ideas, the writing and sharing of poetry. I began by tweeting a series of 'conversations with dumbbells' from trips to the gym, which led to a 6 episode twitter-play, and climaxed in a epic battle: 'INUAMAN versus Issac Newton and the evil forces of Gravity.' It was all purely in good fun, but when I realised that a few followers of mine would rush to work early and gather with their colleagues around mytwitter feed to read the episodes, I realised I was on to something.
I thought about the poetry workshops I had attended and how the tutors would often critic and break down a poem into structural turning points. Returning home, I would try to write a poem along the turning points and realised that anyone could write a similar poem, but with entirely different results gives our varied personalities and life experiences. I began sharing this method of writing with fellow writers and workshop participants and the more results I saw, the more I thought of a reaching a wider writing audience, simultaneously writing the same poem, and Twitter is such a perfect mode of communication.
The character limit forces the instructions and structural turning points to be as direct and clear as possible. Because Twitter streams in real time, I could also make certain that the instructions were shared within a given time, which structured my non-digital writing workshops, and also brought a sense of excitement and immediacy which I enjoy and look for in the writing and reading of poetry. But the Twitter Poetry exercise isn’t about the quality of the poem. It isn’t about the length of the poem, or how well the turning points are followed. It is about community, participation and multi functionality. It is about engaging with those who think of poetry as a higher art form, something that exists in silent dusty rooms, sounds a certain way and must be written a certain way. The exercise demystifies the process of writing, and to do so, knowing that thousands of people are doing so simultaneously, creates a comfortable bubble, a kind of safety net in which to write.
It is widely known that more people write poetry than read poetry. Imagine if any other industry functioned this way: if more people made cars than bought cars. It would be impossible and entirely unsustainable a business model, but this is the poetry model. The twitter-poem engages this problem - and I think it is one - because it generates poetry, at the same time generates the need to read poetry. Participants of the workshop are usually curious about how other writers fared in following the instructions and make time to read and compare their work to others.
