To the Lighthouse: Twitter, An Effective Short Form Poetry Marketing Platform

Living in a hectic society, most people now only have a short attention span. If they are interested in reading something meaningful, I think short verse forms, such as haiku and tanka, will become more and more popular. It's time to join a world of 280-character tweets with its potential for instantly reaching new audiences, which can help bring short form poetry, such as haiku and tanka, back to the forefront of the modern world.

Below is excerpted from Angela Leuck's article, titled "Tanka and the Literary Mainstream: Are we 'there' yet?" ("Book Review Editor's Message," Ribbons, 10:1, Winter 2014, p. 74):

... An alternative approach is suggested by Chen-ou Liu, author of the blog, NeverEnding Story. In his June 2012 Lynx interview with Jane Reichhold, Liu describes the current relationship between the haiku/tanka community and the literary mainstream in terms of "an asymmetric power relationship." He believes a "top down" approach will not work; i.e., trying to change the perceptions of those in the mainstream. Rather, Liu supports a "bottom up" approach, which for him means consolidating and expanding the readership base for tanka through online publishing and social networking sites. He argues:

If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to online and social media.

Liu also says that with the increasingly hectic nature of contemporary society, there will be more interest in shorter poetry, as people have less time and attention, but are still seeking to read something meaningful. He notes that both haiku and tanka have become more and more popular on Tweeter...

on the windowsill
two canaries singing
to each other
I tweet and retweet
NeverEnding Story

Happy Tweeting

Chen-ou

Note: Below are haiku and tanka journals or organizations on Twitter:

NeverEnding Story, @StoryHaikuTanka, Joined January 2013
5 Following; 1,779 Followers

NeverEnding Story Editor, Chen-ou Liu, @ericcoliu, Joined July 2009
6 Following; 3,626 Followers

Tanka Society of America, @OfTanka, Joined January 2019
76 Following; 197 Followers

GUSTS Tanka Canada, @GustsTanka, Joined October 2019
50 Following; 51 Followers

Haiku Society of America, @hsa_haiku, Joined December 2014
83 Following; 1,384 Followers

Atlas Poetica Editor, M. Kei, @kujakupoet, Joined April 2009
334 Following; 2,625 Followers

Failed Haiku, @SenryuJournal, Joined November 2015
1,810 Following; 2,038 Followers

Failed Haiku Editor, Mike Rehling, @MikeRehling, Joined April 2009
4,129 Following; 4,032 Followers

tinywords, @tinywords, Joined April 2007
92 Following; 3,328 Followers

Acorn Haiku, @AcornHaiku, Joined June 2015
758 Following; 1,457 Followers

The Haiku Foundation, @haikufound, Joined November 2009
550 Following; 4,051 Followers

Wales Haiku Journal, @WalesHaiku, Joined February 2018
1,093 Following; 945 Followers

Tanka Origins Editor, an'ya, @tankaanya, Joined January 2017
959 Following; 885 Followers 

Hot News: New Milestone

My Dear Readers/Fellow Poets:

Launched on the first day of 2013, NeverEnding Story reached a new milestone today: it has more than 200 Twitter followers (@storyhaikutanka: following: 6; followers: 205).

The haiku/tanka published on NeverEnding Story will be posted on Twitter via its account, @storyhaikutanka and later re-tweeted by @ericcoliu (my account: following: 7; followers: 1095).

morning birdsong …

I retweet my poem

once again

 

Below is excerpted from my Lynx interview (27:2, June 2012) with Jane Reichhold

Jane Reichhold: What do you feel we as haiku or tanka writers need to do to get these forms more accepted by the mainstream poetry world?

Chen-ou Liu: In terms of defining what poetry is, there is an asymmetric power relationship between the mainstream poetry world and the haiku/tanka community. It’s difficult to change their perception of haiku/tanka in a top-down manner. In my view, the most effective way of reversing this unbalanced relationship is to adopt a bottom-up approach; that is to consolidate and expand our readership base through online publishing and social networking sites. If there are more people who love reading/writing haiku and tanka, the mainstream poetry world will eventually open their main gate to haiku and tanka poets. This approach to reversing the asymmetric power relationship has been demonstrated in the case of the power transfer from traditional media, such as news papers, TV, and books, to  online and social media.

Most importantly, living in a hectic society, most people now only have a short attention span. If they are interested in reading something meaningful, I think short verse forms, such as haiku and tanka, will become more and more popular. I’ve been tweeting my published work for two years,  and found more and more Twitter users use hashtags such as #poetry, #micropoetry, #haiku, #tanka, #gogyohka, #gpoem, #5lines,..etc, to indicate their tweets are short poems (For further information, see M. Kei, “The Topsy Turvy World of Micropoetry on Twitter,” Atlas Poetica, 9, Summer 2011)

Many thanks for your continued support of my project

Chen-ou

Note: NeverEnding Story's haiku and tanka have been regularly reprinted in 95 e-papers, four of which are Japanese. For more information, see Hot News: Haiku/Tanka Reprinted in 90 E-Papers and Chen-ou Liu’s Haiku/Tanka Featured on VerseWrights and its comment section.