"It's August. My life is going to change. I feel it.”
Thoughts on Instagram-influenced poetry, "Atticus" and not knowing who Raymond Carver is but quoting him anyway.
Recently, I noticed people sharing quotes attributed to "Atticus" on Instagram posts and stories.
One read: "She lost herself in him. And after he was gone there was a great refinding..."
"That's so wired [sic?]," responded one Instagrammer on a post. "This is exactly what I am going through."
"Wow this hits deep today," said another.
As you might guess, this quote that’s nailing Instagram users’ emotions and heartache is not the the work of Titus Pomponious Atticus — Cicero’s pal and fellow Roman man of letters — but the creator of "The World's Most Tattooable Poetry" and "Bryon for the Instagram generation", a Canadian dude who calls himself Atticus and conceals his identity in sort of a Banksy-lite (very, very lite) way — I mean, he's not trying to avoid being arrested, just cashing in on the appeal of mystique.
I only discovered he existed today thanks (?) to The Atlantic’s Medium post, How Instagram Saved Poetry, which mentions a few other 'poets', all of whom have triggered a surge of poetry sales in the USA, and around the world judging by the piles of milk & honey, a massively popular collection of poetry and prose, I have seen in every Saigon bookshop for the last few years.
Anyway, it’s not a spoiler to tell you that one critic quoted in The Atlantic post views this "Instagrammable poetry" as “artless” crap. To be honest, it doesn’t bother me that much. I mean, certainly not as much as another post I saw doing the rounds last week on Instagram with a line that read: "It's August. My life is going to change. I feel it.”
That’s when the needle got ripped off the record (for me).
Especially, because there was no accreditation (eerily, the quote was almost made to look like an 'Atticus the Instagram Poet’ quote — the main trick there is using 'Courier font'). But I recognised the line immediately. It’s the magical closer of a Raymond Carver short story called Fat. For a minute or too, I felt a little protective on the behalf of short story readers and Carver fans. People should know more about the actual source, shouldn’t they? Shouldn’t they?!
Well, if you don’t know the story, here you go — it’s about a woman who works as a waitress in a diner, somewhere in America, and one night she serves a very fat man that’s gorging for two. Every member of staff takes turns to comment on how fat he is to the waitress. “How’s tub-of-guts doing?”, “He’s a real fatty.” Et cetera.
In the end, the waitress goes home with her boyfriend, who is the chef at the restaurant, and the way she tells the story to her friend, well, when she gets into bed, she’s ready to turn in and sleep, but then Rudy ‘begins’, and even though she says it’s against her will, she tries to relax and lets Rudy have his way, but the weird kicker is, suddenly, lying there, she feels fat. Like ‘terrifically fat’ and on top of her, Rudy is a little thing. Hardly there at all.
So, yeah, let’s just say, inspirational it ain't. But — in the same way Samuel Beckett had his "Fail Again. Fail Better" rant reinvented as an inspirational/ motivational/ self-help mantra (that gets tattooed on arms), Carver’s closer has been separated from the original context (which is pretty fucking bleak) and reborn, in this case, as something to post in August to boost your self-esteem, mood, and 'engage' with your followers when you’re bored and blue.
"Same for me bae, this August for sure!" you might imagine someone replying to whoever copies and shares it.
But anyway, like the waitress in the story feels, when unloading this on her friend, I’ve already told you too much. I realised that I don’t care about the quote being misused. Instead of tilting at the windmills in the name of Raymond Carver, I’m going to get a head start on making some coffee mugs, t-shirts and coasters for adult drinks with cheery Raymond Carver quotes for the Instagram Age.
I can already see a best-seller of a product with: “Honey, no offence, but sometimes I think I could shoot you and watch you kick.”
"That's so wired [sic?]," one Instagrammer might say, on seeing these words in a post. "This is exactly what I am going through…"
“But don’t worry babes,” I’ll reassure them. “It’s August.”
I had a similar epiphany in the 90s, when everyone was getting Chinese symbols tattooed on their arms and torsos providing such personal insights as ‘loyalty’, ‘wealth’ and ‘afraid of needles.’ I decided to go along with it and have what’s important to me on my arms: unfortunately, the symbol for beer is literally a beer glass so looks crap. But I have ‘football’ on my left arm. Less cool at 48 than it seemed at 25 but hey Ho!
No-one does the reading anymore. I'm perilously close to wearing an onion belt and yelling at clouds but the world would be better if everyone was given the choice to read more and if most of them could take it.