PHYSICAL, VISUAL, DIGITAL: THE DYNAMICS OF TYPOGRAPHIC FOREGROUNDING IN RUPI KAUR’S INSTAPOETRY

Abstract

The article aims at outlining feature of Instapoetry as a contemporary manifestation of visual poetry that functions within the digital space, in particular on the Instagram platform. The main focus is on the work of Rupi Kaur, in particular “Milk and Honey” as a vivid example of a multimodal approach to poetic expression. Special attention is paid to typographic foregrounding as one of the main features of Instapoetry, which is manifested in the spatial organisation of the text, the use of fonts, visual elements and the absence of canonical poetic features such as rhyme, punctuation and traditional stanza. Rupi Kaur skillfully combines verbal and visual components to enhance the emotional effect, creating a unique poetic form that resonates with the young audience and reflects current social and psychological topics: trauma, love, self-identity, femininity, and self-healing. The author examines the contradictory attitude to Instapoetry in the literary environment, where it is often criticised for superficiality, while the postmodern perspective allows us to see a new level of integration of art, personality and social message. The findings indicate that Instapoetry appears not only as a literary form, but also as an arrangement solution, where the poet acts as a curator of the aesthetic space of his own work. In addition to the external visual design, the internal structure of the poems is also studied: the variation of fonts, the lack of punctuation, the use of italics as a means of linguistic emphasis, etc. Instapoetry is essentially a deep emotional response to the digital age, where every user can become a participant in the literary process. They can not only give feedback but also produce their own samples. Its evolution demonstrates the transformation of reader culture, which is moving from passive perception to interactive interaction with the text, in particular through comments, reposts and personalised visual interpretations, as well as new forms of reader reception in the context of digitalisation of culture. Further research perspectives in the field of the impact of digital culture and hashtag practices on the formation of poetry created not only by humans but also by artificial intelligence are identified.