A tweet is an incredibly appropriate size for a poem. – Not Dead Yet: How Technology is Saving Poetry
Poets seem almost inevitably drawn toward Twitter. The challenge of communicating something, anything, within 140 characters is irresistible. It’s a space that requires sparseness of language and clarity of thought. It is, in some ways, akin to the traditionally known haiku with its five-seven-five syllable scheme. It is a place with a strict form – how to manipulate the content to fit within it?
The tweet also is an “incredibly appropriate” vehicle because it tends toward fragmentation and, perhaps, even isolation, ideas that preoccupy modern thought in regard to man’s relationship with technology. It’s not always that preoccupation; some poets recognize that words aren’t always sufficient. They explore what happens when language splinters. They aren’t content with the words themselves. They want to explore the space in which those words are found. What role does that space play? How do the words interact with it?
It may be that thought that predominates many a poet’s mind when she comes to Twitter. Twitter is a space, and it’s a fast-moving, clamorous one. The poet has no certainty that her poem-tweets will be read, but she writes and tweets them anyway. She makes them accessible to any who would read them because that is her role as an artist. It isn’t to batter people with poems or to tell them to read more poetry. No, her job is to do the work and make it accessible because someone needs it.