It doesn’t take a literary genius to understand that words carry a certain weight. But it does take a literary genius to take that slab of weighted matter and carve out of it something meaningful, beautiful, and (if possible) viral.
Pavana Reddy did what most poets can only dream of—turned herself into a viral phenomenon that is. With more than 85,000 fans on Instagram, Reddy is possibly one of the few Instagramable poets of the century. A South Indian, Los Angeles based poet and songwriter, her first book of poetry, Rangoli, has been quite a hit. But like most viral phenomena, her audience is mostly found online.
“Before I took my work to Instagram, I was posting my work on Tumblr under the pseudo-name ‘maza dohta,’ which is a reference from the novel 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami,” she explained in an interview with Rattle. “I used Tumblr for a few years before taking my work to Instagram—I had seen other writers doing the same thing and decided to just give it a try.”
According to Reddy, two months into using Instagram, her childhood hero, Anoushka Shankar, emailed her asking if I would be interested in writing her a poem for her new album, “Land of Gold.” She accepted, and the song “Remain the Sea” came into fruition. From there, the road to success was relitvly came quick.
Reddy’s poems—short, minimal but moving—strike a chord for good reason. They’re the kind of viral message you’d actually want to flow through your feed.
