My poetry was torn apart on Reddit

Let’s talk about the cost of visibility.

A few weeks ago, my poem “The world has not been cruel to him yet” went a bit viral.

It was shared by Read A Little Poem, a poetry Instagram account with nearly 100,000 followers. My poem has now gathered over 17,000 likes, 5,000 shares, and a hundred generous comments. My mind was (and is) blown.

A week or so after the poem took on a life of its own, a new follower told me he found my poem on Reddit. Whoa, can I have the link? I asked. He sent it over and I made Rookie Mistake #1:

I read through the comments.

I’m sure you can guess where the story is going. Many comments were kind and lovely and touching. But one person completely tore this poem to shreds, lit it on fire, and threw it in the garbage disposal. Their comment sparked a spin-off conversation, where people further picked my poem apart, agreeing and disagreeing with various points like they were at a roundtable college workshop.

Reading this all felt very surreal, like I was a fly on the wall at my own funeral. (Though, hopefully, people at my funeral say much kinder things about me.)

Now, here’s some background: I’ve spent the last three weeks in and out of the ER/hospital with my 4-year-old son. I’m depleted and exhausted and fragile. So I’ll be very honest: that negative commentary really got the best of me.

I began to question whether I wanted to keep doing….all of this. Whether I should continue with my book. Whether I should publish a poem ever again. Whether my writing is trash, like this Reddit user implied. (Afterall, I am a poet—thin skin is kind of a requisite.)

Luckily, I reached out to some writing friends to ask if their work has ever been put on blast, and how they handled it. Not surprisingly, they showered me with wisdom and hard-hitting truths, which I then transcribed on post-it notes and hung above my desk.

Here are some of the words they shared (posted with permission):

• “Know that anyone who has ever done something important has faced criticism. It is the cost of vulnerability. It means you're doing the hard thing. It's proof of something beautiful.” —Maria Geisbrecht
  

• “It’s not my responsibility to care about how you interpret my work. I write what’s true to me in the way I want to and if you like it then great, if not then okay. Either way it’s none of my business.” —Elise Powers (she graciously said I could share her Reddit thread here, where you can see that commenters not only criticized her poem, but also her life perspective?!)
  

• “I always feel like if people could do it better then they would be… and they aren’t. So good for you for putting words out there that clearly strike a nerve otherwise they wouldn’t take time to read/comment! It takes guts to write poetry.” —Rachel Beachy
  

So while the negative thoughts still pop up, I’m reminding myself: I’m doing the hard thing. I’m writing what’s true. I’m creating art and I’m sharing it with the world.

As Josie Balka said, “Most things only exist because somebody cared.”

And I care. A lot.

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Book Updates

△ I’m still going to release my book.

△ I’m currently working on revising poems and solidifying sequence/structure with Kelly Grace Thomas.

△ I’ve had one beta reader (thank you, Heidi Fiedler!)

△ Next up, I’ll work on my back synopsis and asking for quotes.

△ I’m getting so close!

*Disclaimer: I am always open to constructive feedback from my writing peers, in workshop settings, and from my mentors.

As always, thank you for being here.
♡ Allison