London (AFP)

"I'm doing it for fun but, who knows, maybe I could live it later." Like Danique Bailey, an 18-year-old Londoner, a new generation is passionate about poetry, an art rediscovered through social networks.

Last year, this teenager was honored in an international competition, the "Foyle Young Poets of the Year Awards", which distinguished one hundred young people aged 11 to 17 among some 6,000 candidates from 83 countries. She was noted for a text that playfully evokes the pronunciation of the "plantain banana".

"Many more people, including me, are interested in poetry with social networks," says AFP the girl who sees a "fun" way to express themselves "in a limited volume."

She is not the only "millennial" (person born between 1980 and 2000) to (re) discover this art: in the United Kingdom, the sales of works of poetry jumped of 66% between 2012 and 2017, according to Nielsen BookScan, which provides data on the publishing sector.

Last year, 1.3 million books of poetry were sold, up 12% year-on-year, according to Nielsen BookScan. And two-thirds of the buyers were under 34 years old.

For Judith Palmer, director of the Poetry Society, which promotes this art, "people are turning to poetry because it raises existential questions in a time of uncertainty." But form matters as much: "There are of course long poems, but mostly short poems, very easy to read on a phone and share on social networks."

Among them, "Instagram is often the place where young people discover poetry," according to research conducted with young people by the Poetry Society, Ms. Palmer told AFP.

Among the stars of this social network, the Canadian born in India Rupi Kaur, 26 years and 3.7 million subscribers. His collection, "Milk and Honey", mixing poetry, prose and illustrations, has been wrenched away in the UK, pulling global sales of poetry.

- "Instapoetes" -

For Judith Palmer, the youth and diverse ethnic background of the "Instapoetes" make teens aware that "not all poems are written by white men who died two centuries ago".

Aficionados share audio or video recordings on Twitter or Youtube and "many people make playlists of poems to listen to on their phones or tablets," she says.

Surfing the phenomenon, the National Library of Poetry in London last year organized an exhibition devoted to poems on Instagram, a first. "We have been inundated with nominations" of poets submitting their works, recalls Chris McCabe, documentalist.

He was surprised by their creativity: poems with political tone or inspired by nature, written with magnetic letters or typewriter, accompanied by photos, videos or illustrations.

Compared to traditional poetry, "the language on Instagram is often simpler and much more visual," he says. "What is totally new is the way the poet interacts with his readers."

"Most of the time, I share a few lines and it immediately has an impact," says AFP Nikita Gill, 32, very popular on Instagram where she has 539,000 subscribers.

For this British-Indian author of "Great Goddesses", a collection of poetry and prose revisiting myths and legends, this new way of communicating has "somehow swept away the idea that one can read from the poetry only if one is a graduate of literature ".

Whether they adopt the highly codified form of haiku (a short poem born in Japan) or deliver their emotions in long texts, the "Instapoetes" have one thing in common, according to Nikita Gill: "we all add our personal touch to what we share".

The young woman accompanies her texts with illustrations that she creates herself.

"Sharing something very personal really touches people," she adds, encouraging budding poets to "do not be afraid" and get started.

© 2019 AFP