In the later part of 2022, I found myself living just outside the Quad Cities in Illinois, coping with the aftermath of several negative events: a breakup, job loss, family illness, and a general sense of personal disillusionment. I had been placed in a position where I was available to help and became responsible for taking my mother to her chemotherapy treatments. The process involved weekly trips to a treatment center and long intervals of waiting. During those intervals, I would doom-scroll on social media, where I was gradually introduced to an online community of creative people. For one reason or another, Instagram’s algorithm began showing me more posts by individuals whose preferred method of artistic expression was the written word.

Perhaps it was my cynicism at the time, or the sheer volume of unresolved emotions I was processing, but I found myself baffled by how popular some of these posts appeared to be. Much of the writing struck me as surface-level—often consisting of rephrased platitudes that, to me, said very little. I found this frustrating not only because of the writing itself, but because of the response it received. I had grown up with an appreciation for literature that operated at a higher level of density and intention, so it was easy to dismiss what I was seeing. What was more difficult to dismiss was the fact that it resonated with so many people.

At that time, I had not written anything creative in many years, beyond journal entries and business communication. Still, I reached a point where I thought: if this is what passes for poetry in this space, then I should at least try to understand why—and whether I could contribute something different.

What followed was not an attempt to imitate what I was seeing, but to identify what separated it from the kind of poetry I respected. I began with a set of simple constraints: stanza structure, syllable count, and rhyme pattern. In doing so, I realized that what I had long thought of as “poetry” was rooted in traditions of form and structure—systems that impose order on language. At the time, those constraints offered something beyond craft. They provided a small sense of stability that my life otherwise lacked.

I decided to share my work in the same environment where I had encountered these posts: Instagram. But rather than adopt the prevailing aesthetic, I found myself reacting against it. There was a kind of ubiquity to the presentation—certain visual motifs, difficult-to-read cursive fonts, loosely applied metaphor, and a general lack of consideration for readability or pacing. Instead of replicating what I saw, I began to think in terms of user experience.

At first, I wrote short pieces—four to six lines—and paired them with photographs I had taken myself. This simple exercise in form quickly expanded into a more active process of experimentation. I started participating in online prompt contests hosted by other users. Sometimes I would set a timer and write against it; other times, I would record a time-lapse of myself improvising a poem on a full-size whiteboard I had access to. This continued for some time, and my place within the broader poetic community began to take shape. At times, my compositions were only poetic in form, lacking the depth or control I was aiming for, as I had not yet developed the confidence to fully work within the constraints I would later prefer. It was a gradual process.

Then I moved from the Quad Cities area down to Macomb, and my focus shifted toward academic work. For a time, poetry receded into the background. But amid my sustained focus on mathematics, I found that I needed a creative outlet. I returned to writing with a clearer intention: to produce work that aligned more closely with the standards I had set for myself. It was not easy at first. It required practice, trial and error, and encouragement from the online community to continue. I still found rhyme difficult, and the resulting combinations of sonically aligned words often felt overly “sing-song,” which led me to limit its use. Over time, however, I began to expand my approach—exploring poetic forms I had not previously encountered and changing the way I listened to music, focusing more closely on the structure of rhyme within lyrics.

It was during this period that I began to recognize that the structure I was trying to impose was not separate from the experience I wanted to create—it was the means by which that experience could exist at all. I wanted to write pieces that carried meaning, depth, and memorable imagery. To that end, I began exploring more complex themes, working within the implications of imagery while maintaining a consistent set of constraints in how I presented the work. I continued to use three elements to bring each post together: a poem, a photograph, and a piece of music. At the time, I was not yet thinking of this as a formal structure, but the combination would later take on a more defined role in my process.

I paid careful attention to composition, leaving space for text to sit comfortably within the frame of the post and selecting subject matter for the image that might encourage the viewer to linger. But even in these early stages, the auditory element began to take on a central role. My background in audio production meant that I was already thinking in terms of pacing, tone, and emotional arc—even before I had fully articulated how those elements would shape the work.

As I continued refining these posts, I encountered the concept of a triptych: a work of art composed of three distinct panels intended to be experienced as a unified whole. Historically, these took the form of hinged religious paintings. I adapted the idea into a sensory framework. Each post would consist of three elements: the poem (literary), the image (visual), and the music (auditory). This marked a turning point in my process.

Rather than treating these elements as supplementary, I began to think of them as interdependent. The poem carried the semantic and emotional content, the image established a visual tone, and the music controlled pacing—how the piece unfolded over time. In some cases, I aligned them harmonically: brighter images and more consonant musical structures paired with themes of longing or romance. In others, I introduced deliberate dissonance, juxtaposing tone and content to create a sense of unease or instability within the experience. The goal was not simply to present a poem, but to construct an environment in which it could be experienced more fully.

This approach met my own internal expectations. It felt coherent—structured in a way that aligned with both my background and the kinds of experiences I was trying to translate. After sharing several of these pieces, I began to observe how others engaged with them. Many interactions were brief and casual, as is typical on social media. But there was also a smaller group of people who took the time to engage more deeply and responded with a level of generosity that I had not anticipated.

My intention was never to reach a broad audience or to optimize for engagement. If anything, I was attempting to move in the opposite direction—to create something that resisted the tendency toward immediacy and superficiality that characterizes much of online interaction. I wanted the work to function as a small counterweight: something that asked the viewer to pause, to attend, and to engage with a more deliberate form of expression.

For a time, this method was sufficient. But as I continued, I found myself wanting to expand—to introduce additional constraints and refine the process further. It became something like a juggler being handed another object: each new element increased both the complexity and the demand for control. I began writing longer poems, experimenting with more varied rhyme schemes, and moving beyond simple syllable counts into more deliberate uses of meter. Eventually, this led to a more specific goal: aligning the reading of the poem with the tempo of the accompanying music. This introduced a new layer of constraint—one that extended beyond the writing itself and into the mechanics of presentation.

For example, if I wrote a poem consisting of six to eight stanzas and wanted the reader to move through it in time with the selected song, I had to account for the platform’s limitations. Instagram allowed only up to ninety seconds of copyrighted audio. That meant selecting music that not only matched the emotional tone of the piece, but also fit within a strict temporal window. In many cases, this required choosing songs that were slightly faster than ideal or restructuring the poem to fit within the available duration. These constraints were not incidental—they became part of the compositional process.

Last year, a platform update introduced a more significant disruption. Previously, I had placed the poem and author’s note in the caption. When a user opened the comments, they would scroll over the image, allowing the text and visual elements to coexist more fluidly. This gave the reader a degree of autonomy: they could engage with the poem, the image, and the music in whatever combination they preferred—together or separately. The update removed this functionality, forcing a shift in how the work could be presented.

By that point, the timed reading aspect of the experience had become essential to me. It was no longer optional. To preserve it, I adapted in two primary ways. The first was to use carousel posts, placing text directly onto the image across multiple slides. The second was to create video formats in which text would appear and disappear, guiding the reader through the poem in alignment with the tempo of the music. Each approach came with its own trade-offs.

The carousel allowed for clarity and control over pacing, but reduced the sense of continuity between elements. The video format preserved temporal flow more effectively, but introduced new constraints related to editing and viewer attention. I experimented with both, working to maintain the integrity of the triptych while adapting to the boundaries imposed by the platform.

What became increasingly clear was that the method itself was not fixed—it was responsive. It evolved in relation to both internal goals and external limitations. In that sense, the constraints were not obstacles so much as defining conditions of the work. At the same time, working within the Instagram platform introduced a degree of flexibility that I had not initially anticipated. While the method is structured, it does not prescribe a single path of engagement. Readers can encounter the work in different ways—through text, image, sound, or some combination of the three—and each approach produces a slightly different experience.

At present, I would not say that there is any one correct way to engage with the work. There is intention behind how it is constructed, and a particular experience I aim to guide the reader toward, but that experience is not fixed. Each reader brings their own pace, attention, and interpretation. Over time, I have come to see this variability not as a limitation, but as part of the process itself.

It has become increasingly clear that while the method shapes how the work is encountered, it does not determine what any reader ultimately carries away. Some move quickly, others more deliberately; some engage with the full structure, while others encounter only fragments. In each case, the aim remains the same: to hold attention long enough to allow for a more sustained interaction with language and experience than the medium typically encourages.

The method, then, is not a prescription, but a set of conditions—formed through constraint, timing, and composition—that guide the experience without fixing it. Beneath that structure is a consistent attempt to articulate something with clarity and depth, while still working within the limitations of the platform.

When I began writing poetry, I was looking for a way to impose structure on a period of my life that felt unstable and difficult to navigate. Over time, that impulse has developed into something more deliberate: a method that not only shapes how I write, but helps me maintain a sense of clarity within the experience itself.

Edited by Shaylie Muehl