What It Takes to Be a TikTok Poet

Before the video is over, I’m snickering and sending it to my TikTok-addicted best friend. He’s a New York wine exec whose only experience with poetry is at my readings. Until now. Onscreen, a manicured hand opens a slim book against the backdrop of rumpled bed sheets—then a perky woman’s voice starts reading:

you deserve to be loved without condition. you are enough, without
trying harder. without learning new things, without accomplishments.
without success. without getting bigger or smaller. without getting
smarter. without improvements. without changing anything at all.
you are enough, just as you are.

The poem comes from , aka , whose page I discovered in an attempt to teach myself TikTok. She has 774K followers, and in October 2022, about how she had recently hit $1 million in sales from self-publishing five poetry collections. The themes of her work are summed up in her one sentence bio: “Michaela Angemeer is a Canadian poet and author who’s passionate about sharing her self-love journey.” Self-love, heartbreak, grief—all tenets of the TikTok poets. I joined TikTok last September with every intention of playing the game and selling my own poetry collection. is a mix of film photos and typewritten poems—designed and published by myself—about the angsty 20s and emerging from their haze. From the outside, it seemed an easy fit for BookTok, and after a lifetime