"Poems Porn:" Abomination or Revolution?

by G. Mitchell Layton

Image via "Poems Porn" Facebook Page

Pornography: a word that tends to make people uncomfortable, a sort of taboo concept that can instantly cause nervous laughter or shock value. Typically we avoid the subject, but recently there has been a trend amongst social networking pages to add the word “porn” to their page names. With accounts like “food porn, “science porn,” or “word porn,” that use the word “porn” as a way to show that they’ll be posting the best and most appealing content of their subject, much like pornography. For example, the “Food Porn” page posts delicious pictures of gourmet dishes from the best chefs, which is enough to arouse the hungry and become porn-like to a borderline addicted foodie. The “Science Porn” page posts exotic images of nature and the universe to show the beauty of science in our world.  

The porn aspect of these pages is obviously exaggerated, because no one has the same reaction to a key lime pie as they would to hardcore pornography (at least I would hope not). However, the concept remains the same, and some of these pages on Facebook and Twitter have millions of followers.
​
This brings me to my personal favorite of the “porn” pages: “Poems Porn.” It’s a bit misleading as, in my opinion, the page has nothing to do with poetry despite the description on their Facebook page that states, “Beautiful poems found online. We Claim no rights to the pics that are posted here.” Beauty is relative and up for interpretation, and apparently so is the concept of poetry. Where the “food porn” page at least posts pictures of tasty treats, the poems porn page has not posted one poem, or rather, none that seem like actual poems to me. They seem more like quotes or inspiring phrases. So if they’re not poems, and they’re definitely not porn, what are they?

Read More