Twitter for Poetry Lovers: 12 Accounts You Should Follow
In this fast-paced electronic age, poetry is severely undervalued and under read. Luckily, some poetry fans have taken their passion to the interwebs and regularly tweet excerpts from their favorite poems. This list includes only active accounts (i.e. accounts that have tweeted within the last three months). There are a number of abandoned accounts worth perusing (@RobertFrostbyte, @Wm_Blake, and @WordsworthWords come to mind), but then you could also just pay a visit to your local library.
Eclectic
@PoetryFound
The Poetry Foundation publishes Poetry Magazine and is one of the greatest forces keeping a love and recognition of poetry alive in American culture. They tweet a lot of great poems and other cool stuff like this:
Have you seen a #PoetryTaxi yet? @Suntimes did: https://t.co/AKkC5e4mHt Let Poetry Take You Places! pic.twitter.com/kYgf2lkO2N
— Poetry Foundation (@PoetryFound) April 7, 2014
@Poetry_Daily
Along with the daily poem, Poetry Daily also posts related news and links.
@PoetryVerve
Poetry Verve posts a wide range of modern and classic poets. A quick perusal of this page begs the question: why do poets always have the coolest names? Cases in point: Louise Glück and Farnoosh Fathi.
@PoemsPorn
Like book porn, but for poetry.
— Poems Porn (@PoemsPorn) April 6, 2014
Single-Author
@sonnets
Interestingly enough, this account is maintained by actor/producer @DavidAugust. A link to one of Shakespeare’s sonnets is tweeted every day.
@itssylviaplath
This account posts quotes from more than just her poetry. The quote below is from The Bell Jar.
I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.
— Sylvia Plath (@itssylviaplath) March 24, 2014
@E_Dickinson
“The shore is safer…but I love to buffet the sea—I can count the bitter wrecks here in these pleasant waters…but oh, I love the danger!”
— Emily Dickinson (@E_Dickinson) April 6, 2014
@langston_poems
Gather quickly Out of darkness All the songs you know And throw them at the sun Before they melt Like snow.
— Langston Hughes (@langston_poems) April 7, 2014
@EE_Cummings
moon and sunset
— E. E. Cummings (@EE_Cummings) April 4, 2014
@ezraloomispound
O my songs, Why do you look so eagerly and so curiously into people’s faces, Will you find your lost dead among them?
— Ezra Pound (@ezraloomispound) May 2, 2013
@TweetsOfGrass
If you need your daily Walt Whitman fix, TweetsOfGrass posts Leaves of Grass in bite-sized bits over and over again. There’s also a great parody account called @TheWaltWhitman.
Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the leaves of the brush;
— Walt Whitman (@TweetsOfGrass) April 7, 2014
@BIBLE_Psalms
Not a lot of ancient poetry makes it to Twitter, but the Psalms did. Technically this isn’t a single-author account, but it’s not exactly eclectic either, so I’m including it here.
