Reviving Classic Poets: Why Gen Z Is Rediscovering Dickinson, Rumi, and Neruda

There is something surprising about seeing century-old poetry resurface in the midst of social media posts. A line written by a long-deceased author is pasted as a caption under a photo, an Instagram story, or a TikTok video about first heartbreaks. Poets such as Emily Dickinson, Rumi, and Pablo Neruda are making a comeback in the feed of Gen Z.

It may seem surprising to judge by the reputation of poetry as a whole. For many, the mention of poetry is tied to stuffy classes and stuffier exams. What high schoolers and college students fail to realize, however, is that these poets wrote about feelings and ideas that people experience and ask themselves even today.

Emily Dickinson: The Poetry of Solitude and Angst

Emily Dickinson’s poems are some of the most reprinted and anthologized in the United States. The seclusion she practiced for most of her life and the unconventional punctuation she used in her poetry were unique at the time.

Gen Z’s current fascination with Emily Dickinson is the product of both the themes she wrote about and the form in which she wrote her poems. For young people who struggle to identify themselves with society, her poetry acts as both a reassurance and a guidepost that confirms that they are not alone. It is also notable that the reprints and quotations miss the deeper meaning of her work, that is, the epistemological and ontological ambiguity.

Rumi: The Mystical Poet and His Love for God

The poetry of Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet, has been circulating on social media since at least the early 2010s. Rumi’s work is part of the Sufi mystic tradition, so most of his poems concern themes of divine, sensual, or earthly love and the relationship between the two.

Perhaps it is accurate to say that young people mostly know Rumi’s work in the form of aphorisms, which often appear in the Instagram stories or Facebook posts of people who identify as spiritual but not religious. It is not wrong to approach Rumi from this perspective; however, understanding the context and historical background of his work can be more enriching. After all, the purpose of reading poetry is to experience the author’s meaning.

Pablo Neruda: Passionate Amour and Much More

Pablo Neruda is probably the most well-known poet from the 20th century — at least until recently. His work has permeated global pop culture in the form of romantic quotes and metaphors about love and life. However, like Emily Dickinson, Neruda’s oeuvre is much broader than the love poems that have survived in the annals of pop culture.

A significant portion of Neruda’s work is made up of passionate love poems, which are right in line with the content that Gen Z knows about the poet. However, he also wrote about politics, history, religion, and nature, which makes his work even more interesting. Reading Neruda’s work is a good chance to become acquainted with a great Latin American poet who was also a politician and an economist.

Why Gen Z Likes Poetry — and What It Means

One of the reasons why Gen Z is drawn to poetry is that the meaning of individual verses can be applied to almost any topic and situation. At the same time, each of these poets has a large body of work that goes far beyond the interpretation that high schoolers or college students may make. Social media provides a platform for discovering new things. Not only can a person find a work by the means of a catchy and succinct line, but they can also follow the recommendations and interact with others. The discovery of poetry through social media can be beneficial to both sides: it is not a waste of time to read something that a famous contemporary personality has recommended. However, if a person wants to get to the bottom of what the author really meant, it is necessary to go deeper into the work and study it more carefully.

A Word About the Limits and the Future

When a quotation from a classical author is shared on the Internet, the interpretation of it becomes distorted. A particular choice of words may affect the meaning of the line, or a particular translation may differ from the original. It is not possible to understand the essence of poetry by reading only the parts that sound beautiful. This is where the value of online poetry culture lies — in discovering a new literary figure, a new genre, or a new way of perceiving art in general. The viral spread of a single line from a poem is an excellent opportunity to study this work more deeply. The future prospects of this trend are ambiguous, but it is still important to remember that the best way to study poetry is by reading it in the original.

The poetic legacy of three prominent 19th-20th century figures, Emily Dickinson, Rumi, and Pablo Neruda, appears to be flourishing on social media nowadays. This is because the topics these authors wrote about are of interest to people in all areas and at all stages of life. Gen Z is taking the classic authors of the past to their social media feed, making them part of their daily lives.

Reference: Poetry Foundation — Emily Dickinson, for biographical and literary context. Readers can also consult reputable editions and translations of Rumi and Neruda to explore their work in greater depth.