Instagram poet Raychel Smithwick has seemingly given up her storied, three-month-long career in poetry after reuniting with her ex-partner.
Smithwick — who had up until recently been frequently posting short, all-lowercased poems that alluded to pain and heartbreak and contained several quirky allusions about city living — seemed to be settling back into partnered life, as evidenced by several new posts of actual photos with normal, prose captions.
Those who know the lauded-for-her-creativity-by-her-hometown-friends bard have reported that the poetry posts — containing Notes app screenshots and/or typewriter font from a photo-editing app — have fully ceased since approximately six weeks ago when Smithwick and her ex got back together.
“No more piecemeal poems alluding to drunken nights, bad sex, or breakdowns,” said a friend who wishes to maintain anonymous out of concerns that if identified, she may have to tell Smithwick how she felt about all the poetry. “Her page is back to regular pics — selfies, two cups of coffee with latte art, her dog in various places along New York’s Hudson Valley that she’s clearly been visiting with her ex and now current partner.”
Smithwick’s extensive background in poetry, according to reports, largely consisted of googling “Walt Whitman leaf poem” every few years and one college English class in which she was given a handout containing two poems from Sylvia Plath’s Ariel.
“When posting those cutesy poems for several months, it was obvious she was feeling a lot of emotions and working through something — likely the breakup, since she started posting short kitschy poems literally the day after that,” the friend said. “But as soon as I heard she was back with her ex, I noticed the poems dried up, too.”
A work colleague who wishes to remain anonymous said the poem from Smithwick’s Instagram that has stayed with her was one that began “he sat angrily on the couch after he fucked me/ as i sipped a cold americano from the cafe in the city/ i am shook and over-caffeinated and/ over him :]”
The colleague said, “I think it was courageous of her. I only knew her as my marketing colleague and not someone who was going through exquisite hurt and very horny, so it was interesting to find out blips of that from occasional six-line poems.” Asked if he thinks Smithwick may write more, the colleague responded, “No I doubt it. Once her ex started showing up in pictures again with captions about enjoying the park, I was like, ‘Oh yeah that poetry is dunzo.'”
When asked about the poetry posts being over, her ex responded, “I didn’t really notice.”
