In high school, there was never a more depressing time for me than Saturday nights. Plopping onto my all–too–familiar mattress, I’d brace myself for an hour of creative writing that rarely produced tangible results. In an effort to ignite a spark of inspiration in my writing, I would browse through the Poetry category of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards gallery to see what other poets my age were writing about. And after months of continually browsing this tab, I came to two conclusions—that “winning” writing was most often about some sort of cultural trauma, and that it was always depressing.
This is the essence of what I learned in all my years of being a creative writer—that creativity was underrated, innovation usually went unnoticed, and “winning” was about intuitively understanding what topics judges liked reading about—often about cultural trauma and its subsequent manifestations.
Unfortunately, this microcosmic world—the high school creative writing industry—is also reflective of the publishing industry at large. Authors everywhere are learning to transform their traumas into digestible narratives, crafted to satisfy the appetites of readers and made to appeal to audiences, using pain and sadness and their selling points.
This practice has sparked significant controversy within the writing community, with critics and readers alike resorting to verbally assaulting authors who choose to profit off of cultural trauma. Authors are blamed for sensationalizing trauma and writing consumerist poetry, catering to market demands rather than providing any insightful commentary.
This backlash, though, is completely misdirected. It is not writers who should be faulted for commercializing their own culture, but rather the literary industry as a whole.
It’s no surprise that the publishing industry, in an era of quarantine and solitude, has become saturated with writers, rendering it exponentially more difficult for writers to stick out from a homogeneous crowd of carbon–copy writing styles and plot frameworks. In fact, many of these trendy writing styles originated on social media platforms, like TikTok. BookTok—a TikTok community where writers share their own pieces and talk about their passion for literature—has birthed a new era of writers, providing a platform for authors to market their work for free, in hopes that the TikTok algorithm selects them to go viral. Many of these works often glorify topics such as toxicity and abusive relationships, and notable examples of works that have amassed popularity through the app include It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover—which features heavy domestic and sexual violence.
This glorification of trauma extends also to cultural trauma through genres like “mango diaspora poetry,” which originally referred to a specific style of writing within diaspora poetry by South Asian authors—who frequently used the mango as a stereotypical symbol to represent Indian culture—but now has evolved to encompass a mockable genre of diaspora poetry that seems to consistently flatten complex cultural experiences.
This trend reflects a broader movement within the literary community of authors writing about sensational topics to capture large audiences. In this new era of writing, authors are desperate to have some sort of hallmark trait that distinguishes them from other writers, and publishers are eager to compartmentalize authors into a one–size–fits–all box with a friendly label that appeals to all readers. And because the publishing industry has an overwhelming majority of white authors, a set–in–stone means of success for BIPOC writers is by writing stories about cultural suffering.
Take author Raj Tawney, for example, who is of Indian, Italian, and Puerto Rican heritage. In an article with NBC News, he discussed his experience of submitting a memoir about his mixed heritage to publishers. Numerous times, though, his work was dismissed by publishers because it did not explore the turmoils of his culture, rather capturing it in all its beauty and elegance.
As shown through Tawney’s experiences, the only way that writers can even get their foot in the door of publishers is by, in some way, commodifying their own culture. They are forced down a pipeline of writing about topics that they may not want to, but feel compelled to write about because of their marketability and ease in luring in larger audiences—but these authors also bear the burden of condemnation from readers for profiting off of their cultural trauma when they only did under involuntary circumstances.
Some authors (unlike Tawney) voluntarily cling to the trend of writing about culture–related trauma and have been leaders in the field. South Asian poet Rupi Kaur—whose work centers around her identity as a Canadian–Indian—has earned some highly sought–after titles over the years, such as The New Republic’s “Writer of the Decade” and Goodreads’ Readers' Favorite Poetry Award. However, she also been accused multiple times of monetizing South Asian trauma in her poetry books, which have been deemed “Insta–poetry”—a genre of poetry that, to the larger poetry community, connotes a sense of low–effort, low–technique, and haphazard writing.
Some readers are quick to criticize how her unoriginal and simplistic writing about Indian culture only perpetuates stereotypes—and they’re right. Kaur’s poems fall into the genre of mango diaspora poetry that everybody loves to hate on.
But why should Kaur be forced to stop writing this sort of poetry when it is not only profitable but also appreciated by millions of readers around the world who find her voice meaningful and representative of their experiences? To many, her poetry is accessible—it opens doors to healing and understanding. To many, her poetry is aesthetic—pleasing to the eye because they’re accompanied by beautiful line drawings. To many, her poetry is great—and that is enough of a reason for them to keep buying and reading.
Some of the liability of Kaur’s success not only falls on the publishing industry for continually awarding her with prizes and accolades, but also on readers of her poetry books—not just lovers of her poetry, but also haters of her writing who shower her with more attention in the form of melodramatic op–eds.
Kaur’s success raises a question: Has the commodification of trauma become so normalized in society to the point where we celebrate it? As readers, our role in deciding which books garner attention parallels the influence of the publishing industry. We have the power to choose the authors that we want to uplift; we hold power in shaping the cultural conversations that drive the literary industry forward.
There are many ways for us to make change—with one being through democratic voting processes. Many awards lists that allow upcoming writers to gain exposure, like the Goodreads Choice Awards, are voted on solely by users, giving us the power to alter the industry’s trajectory.
We may hate on Kaur, but wouldn’t anyone write what is profitable? I know I would write Instapoetry for a living if I could be as rich and famous as she is. As much as we hate on her for exploiting cultural trauma, it’s time to confront the root of it all—our own participation in and endorsement of literary trends that may not serve the best interests of cultural integrity.
