Is Social Media Making Us Modern Day Poets?

Watched Gwyneth Paltrow last night in ‘Sylvia’, a film about the confessional poet Sylvia Plath.

Aside from the fact that I thought the film was beautifully constructed with the drizzly and freezing cold British weather playing almost a third character in the film towards the latter half, I found myself wondering afterwards if social media was requiring us all to become  in some way modern day confessional poets?

In this insightful 1962 interview with Peter Orr of The British Council  Plath talks about what inspires her and why poetry in particular is a challenging medium.

“ In a novel you can get in toothbrush’s and all the paraphenalia that one finds in daily life. I find this more difficult in poetry. Poetry is a tyrannical discipline you have got to go so far, so fast in such a small space that you just got to burn away all the peripherals…”

Facebook and Twitter are also  ’tyrannical discipline’s’ requiring you to construct a half meaningful, engaging sentence sometimes in only 140 characters.  You also need to move in “such a small space” and “burn away all the peripherals”.

I don’t think social media is making us all modern day poets. Some might say the opposite as toothbrushes, baby vomit and observations on whether to clean the toilet or not invade our status updates!. Writers like Plath don’t come along every day (them’s the breaks folks!) . But it’s worth thinking about the next time you write an update.

Channel Sylvia. Channel poetry.