Thursday, September 18, 2014

Social media and an obsession for morning haikus has led little known poet to crack bestseller lists.


Tyler Knott Gregson is a 33-year old Montana-based poet and photographer who started posting one poem a day--usually with an accompanying photo--to his social media accounts, like Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For five years he's continued this, never missing a day, which has led to over a quarter million followers on Tumblr.

According to the Wall Street Journal, usually his mornings start with posting a haiku and photo, followed by afternoons where he scans longer poems composed on a typewriter, which are then shared with the masses.

This addiction to his craft has paid off, as his first collection of poetry, Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series, has cracked multiple bestseller lists, with over 50,000 copies in print. That's largely unheard of for poetry, never mind a first-time published poet.

As for his daily poetry, Gregson sees some sort of potential for it ending eventually. As he tells the Journal, "I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it up. [...] But I have a noisy brain, so I just keep going."




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