Four poems for the Dark
Four poems for the Dark is small, hand-bound, paperback booklet meant to be an experiment in the autonomous sharing of poetry beyond the bounds of social media.
Artists and writers are usually told that they “need” a social media presence to get their work out there—for many writers, that means Twitter, but for visual artists and poets in particular, it has been Instagram (hence the term “Instapoetry.”) I’d maintained an Insta account to share my work for years, but found myself increasingly frustrated by it. There were many reasons, so I’ll just explain three. Some of them might resonate with you:
Publishing on social platforms changes the way you write (or make art) to fit the parameters of their formatting. For Instagram, this meant favoring shorter poems since they fit in a single image. Failing that, I had to decide how to break my longer ones apart into a carousel of images that didn’t always allow for my preferred stanza breaks.
Publishing on social platforms puts you in the line of fire for scammers and spam. Of the messages I received asking about buying art, about three-quarters of them were scammers who had no intention of ever paying me. (I became very proficient in recognizing new scams.) Of the comments I received on my poetry posts, half of them were from bots urging me to DM a random account to get my poetry shared on their page, instead. Instagram is full of people promising views and failing to deliver, always trying to get something from you for free. This is the theft of creative labor. (Arguably, this parasitic impulse is the foundation all social media platforms, which become successful only through their users’ creativity and energy).
Publishing on social media also changes the way you interact with the physical world around you. For me, this was the most concerning. Why? I love to travel, and a lot of my poetry and art is inspired by the unique experiences and perspectives I come across when not at home. It’s that quickening spark of curiosity and wonder about the world that urges me to create. It makes me say, “There’s a poem I need to write! There’s a painting I need to make!” Yet by late 2022, this is what was going through my head when traveling: “I should sketch this view, it would look great on Instagram.” I still wanted to make art, but increasingly, I was caught in this mental trap of it needing to “work” for social media, otherwise it wasn’t worth my time.
So I dumped Instagram (and a few other old social media accounts while I was at it) earlier this year. Yet my desire to share my work—the whole reason I downloaded Instagram to begin with—was still there. I selected some poems, most of them previously published here and there in literary magazines, that harmonized with one another. And, drawing on my college past of spending long, quiet evenings bookbinding portfolios of my prints in the print shop, I began the slow work of making Four poems for the Dark.
The title comes from the night setting, or general sense of darkness, that runs through the four poems; in addition, the booklet itself is a leap in the dark. The distribution method is purposefully non-digital, unplanned, non-commercial, and personal. I keep a copy with me as I go about my daily life, maybe more when I travel. If a “giving spot” presents itself—like a Little Free Library, or a community flyer table—I’ll leave one behind for whomever finds it. I certainly hope people are curious enough to pick them up, read them, maybe even keep them around awhile if they resonate… though I understand some copies are likely to be thrown away if I leave them behind like this. That’s okay. I’m keeping materials to a minimum. They are my choice to make, a labor of love, but they aren’t meant to last forever, either. When I run out of copies, I make a few more. When I get bored of this experiment, I’ll stop.
If you’re here because you’re holding one in your hands, know that I’m grateful for the gift of your attention.
My Instagram account was born because I wanted to share my work with people who might enjoy it, in a direct way that circumvented the litmag gatekeepers. (No shade meant to them, though. I’ve been an editor for a couple great ones; the choices that editors make are necessary and often difficult.) At its start, my account had no greater end goal than to create something honest and present it freely to the world. But, as I’ve come to understand, that openness and honestly was a mirage that social media companies had crafted to entice creative users. It simply never existed. So, here I am again, and here are my words—back in the world of things, embarked on our own wonderful, serendipitous and fugitive pursuits.
—August 2023
