Minimal and Micro Poems.

There is an absolute place with micro poetry.Before my accounts were hacked,I wrote Haikus,Acrostics,Limericks and was just experimenting with Tankas(similar to haiku,think its 5/7/7/5/5 structure,if any Tanka police wants to arrest me for my ignorance,go ahead.Mean there's already Haiku club,might as well add Tanka police force to mix).

Honestly,my first exposure to Insta poetry would been Rupi Kaur Milk and Honey,don’t quote me on this,this was probably publish before Instapoetry was even a thing.

I like to think micro poetry is great,as long as its in a structure.When I started,I did one or two Shakespearan sonnets,play with narrative poems,did my first epic as one hundredth poem,and when I was on Instagram in 2019 and this year for a VERY BRIEF time,I did forms I already mention.

I'm saying all this because each poem I wrote always needed to have structure.

Once structure was there,then came techniques,inspirational lines(lines inspire by an artistic figure) and even a title,if you prefer.Play with structure is prefer since you actually get to see how a type of poem is made.

Nothing wrong with experimenting,I think it's more of experiencing form first and then experimenting with different artforms.For instance,in diets,some people can do an all sugar diet and be fine.They can intermittent fasting and be fine.Ketogenic,vegan,high and low carb.As you can hopefully see,they all have something in common.All these diets were try,tested and taken to fit in needs of individual.So what would make poetry any different?

I highly recommend doing micro poetry,even if its for a season.

You can find some of them under the scifaiku tab on my blog, No Wasted Ink http://nowastedink.com . I also have some from my book up on my instagram: https://instagram.com/nowastedink

Scifaiku is science fiction themed haiku. It somewhat follows the rules of Japanese style haiku, with a few caveats. It was developed as a form around 40 to 50 years ago by science fiction authors like David Brin and Joe Haldeman and continues to this day.

I am known for my scifaiku poetry and haiku-style astropoetry. I've published a book of them, which was nominated twice for an award. I publish the poems in magazines first, then place them in groups on Medium to earn additional income. The last stop is as a poem on my instagram page. I feature one poem a month on my feed.

To me, haiku and scifaiku are legitimate forms and should be embraced as any other form of poetry. I agree that they are not easy to write. I can spend an afternoon writing a couple of them from a prompt of my choosing. I also agree that the phrases on instagram are not poems...I consider them to be quotes.

What I wanted to do with my tiny poem was to raise questions.

In the style of Haiku I wanted to present a situation, a snapshot of life.

Why is the classroom empty?

Is school finished?

Why is the book left open?

Did they leave in a hurry an emergency?

What is the word?

This is what I am trying to explore with small poems.

I love microcosms but I can't write them, mine disintegrate into cliche. I don't access instagram but assume the posts you are not impressed with also do this. The message i received from Marc's poem ,and it is a poem, is diminishing between a vacuous term, i.e. means nothing, and an unusual word , ie one we don't know the meaning of. I think multiple interpretations makes a piece poetry rather than scribbles.

I think it depends on the subject matter and the execution. You can pack a lot into a couple of lines, but those lines need to be filled to the brim. French press as much flavor and imagery out of your language as you can.

I think there is absolutely a place for micro poetry. Again, not insta statements, but we’ll considered layered micro poems can be incredibly impactful. It is my hope that micro poems will one day push aside the insta statements.

a couple years ago I was playing around with the idea of Instagram, haikus and tankas and I wanted to attempt to make my own poetry form that speaks of and to the 21st century. Something instant, to the point, quick and convenient and yet was still crafted, thought provoking and artistic.

I invented the Simplex Metre. I don’t know if it really works because I only ever played with it myself but it consists of 3 lines: first line is a singular word of 2 syllables, and the same for the second line. Then the third line is two words of one syllable.

So off the cuff something like:

Crumbled.

Broken.

Split heart.

Was just a bit of fun, but this reminded me of some very experimental times!

Big up the micro! Hehe

I've always preferred a traditional 4 stanza+ poem (and sometimes ones of epic length) but the kind of micro-poetry you are talking about is really growing on me. I don't mind reading them every now and then, but I don't think it's purely for the poetic journey- I think a lot of the time, they're just fun, sometimes clever little puzzles to figure out. I guess this is our version of say, a crossword or sudoku.

I mentioned this in a previous post, that I like how micro-poems are 'vague and ambiguous but ultimately deliver a very concise message'. Unlike insta-poetry, these kinds of micro-poems have an element of depth to them, albeit it, not multitudes of depth but they do provide enough direction, suggestion and detail to tell a strong narrative considering how few words are being used. Thought has actually gone into writing them and I like taking the time to dissect them. I think 'time' is the crucial word here. You need to take time unravelling them and figuring out what is being said. For e.g. I'm assuming the poem you have written is about a student sitting in class alone, with a question on their mind yet no one is there to help them. The delivery isn't black and white in the way insta-poetry is, but the message is pretty straight forward. That's the beauty of it- the poem isn't as straight-forward as its message.

Also something else I've noticed about a good micro-poetry: they're freaking hard to write up on the spot! I was going to write one up now but it takes time to develop a narrative that isn't linear. So in a nutshell, I think there is a place for micro-poems like this, though it shouldn't take up a considerable amount of space, if that also makes sense. There is a reason why many poets devote so much time to telling a story that is highly detailed and going places- there is a lot to say about something so simple, and there is a lot to say about something so complex and multilayered. A poem is a journey and the journey is often a long and winding one.