It’s not so long ago that writers, publishers, readers and critics alike were bemoaning contemporary poetry’s inability to cross into the mainstream. It wasn’t dead, so much as moribund. But try telling New Zealand’s Lang Leav that you can’t make a living with stanzas and couplets.
When she started posting her poems on Tumblr in 2013, Leav quickly found a young audience eager to read her musings on love and loss, self-awareness and feminism. Before she knew it, she’d become an international bestseller, at the vanguard of the “Instapoet” scene with the likes of the Indian-Canadian superstar Rupi Kaur.
“Honestly, I posted two poems on Tumblr, a literary blog picked it up and my work went viral,” says Leav, still clearly unable to believe how quickly her writing took off. “I was absolutely astounded.”
It has propelled the 34-year-old to the kind of literary profile she could never have dreamed of, and given her the opportunity to write a debut novel, Sad Girls. Out earlier this year, it's a coming-of-age drama featuring a young girl dealing with death and ill-timed romance.
At the Sharjah Book Fair, Leav will talk about how to capture young readers – so the combination of her online poetry and this new novel surely makes her the ideal sage.
“Young people absolutely inhabit the digital world, so you have to find new and creative ways to make your presence felt,” she says. “So social media is a fantastic tool – Twitter especially is snappy and immediate. Strangely, for all I was called an Instapoet, I didn’t actually go on Instagram until a couple of years ago. I’d had two bestselling published books by then.”
Interestingly, Leav thinks that Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all have their own individual personality. For example, Instagram isn't actually a text medium – it requires images of the lines of poetry to be uploaded – so the poems are often short, immediate and desperate to grab attention. The first line of Leav's poem The Last Time, which was published on Twitter using an uploaded image, sums up this approach. It begins: "When was the last time you said I love you and meant it".
Angsty. But the fans love it: Leav has 1.8 million followers across her various networks.
“It’s pretty amazing,” she says. “Each generation cultivates a language all of their own, and it’s meant to be exclusive. So, if you want to get into that world, you have to speak their language – not least because now you’re competing with gaming, Netflix and so on.”
Leav has been posting lines from her novel Sad Girls as "mini-cliffhangers" and finding that readers are desperate to find out more. And if there's a connection between a tweet like "your first love isn't the first person you give your heart to – it's the first one who breaks it," and her poetry, then that's deliberate. "There's a lot of melancholy in both," she admits.
"I was born in a refugee camp and grew up in a small migrant town in Western Sydney. There was this environment of sadness, and hearing all the stories of displaced people was bound to have an impact on my life. So I wanted to create a protagonist in Sad Girls who wasn't perfect, who has flaws, who is authentic."
Whether the novel will have the same impact as her poetry remains to be seen. What is certain is that the poetry sections of bookstores are probably the biggest they've been in years. Leav is, genuinely, partly responsible for this encouraging state of affairs. For her, if that means young people then go on to read Emily Dickenson or Robert Frost, then so much the better.
“They wrote poetry for their time – I’ve just adapted that and made it a bit more modern,” she says, modestly. “But yes, you’d have to say poetry has become a bit of a movement – and I’m thrilled and proud to be a part of it.”
Lang Leav is at the Book Forum, Sharjah International Book Fair, on Thursday at 7.15pm
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
How to get there
Emirates (www.emirates.com) flies directly to Hanoi, Vietnam, with fares starting from around Dh2,725 return, while Etihad (www.etihad.com) fares cost about Dh2,213 return with a stop. Chuong is 25 kilometres south of Hanoi.
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
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Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
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- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
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Various Artists
Habibi Funk: An Eclectic Selection Of Music From The Arab World (Habibi Funk)
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Emiratisation at work
Emiratisation was introduced in the UAE more than 10 years ago
It aims to boost the number of citizens in the workforce particularly in the private sector.
Growing the number of Emiratis in the workplace will help the UAE reduce dependence on overseas workers
The Cabinet in December last year, approved a national fund for Emirati jobseekers and guaranteed citizens working in the private sector a comparable pension
President Sheikh Khalifa has described Emiratisation as “a true measure for success”.
During the UAE’s 48th National Day, Sheikh Khalifa named education, entrepreneurship, Emiratisation and space travel among cornerstones of national development
More than 80 per cent of Emiratis work in the federal or local government as per 2017 statistics
The Emiratisation programme includes the creation of 20,000 new jobs for UAE citizens
UAE citizens will be given priority in managerial positions in the government sphere
The purpose is to raise the contribution of UAE nationals in the job market and create a diverse workforce of citizens
500 People from Gaza enter France
115 Special programme for artists
25 Evacuation of injured and sick
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Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
What the law says
Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.
“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.
“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”
If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.
Brief scoreline:
Liverpool 2
Mane 51', Salah 53'
Chelsea 0
Man of the Match: Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
What are the main cyber security threats?
Cyber crime - This includes fraud, impersonation, scams and deepfake technology, tactics that are increasingly targeting infrastructure and exploiting human vulnerabilities.
Cyber terrorism - Social media platforms are used to spread radical ideologies, misinformation and disinformation, often with the aim of disrupting critical infrastructure such as power grids.
Cyber warfare - Shaped by geopolitical tension, hostile actors seek to infiltrate and compromise national infrastructure, using one country’s systems as a springboard to launch attacks on others.
