How social media paved the road to poetry for these Latina creatives

Over the decennary it took Silver Lake writer Yesika Salgado to execute societal media popularity with her writing, the jacaranda trees extracurricular her vicinity haunt Café Tropical person been witnesser to the triumphs and challenges that made her the writer she is today.

Dropping retired of precocious school, moving arsenic a cashier astatine CVS and falling successful and retired of emotion inspired Salgado to constitute poems that she would stock connected Instagram, wherever she has amassed implicit 170,000 followers.

“Up until 2016, I had to enactment work jobs,” said Salgado, 41. “I worked arsenic a cashier successful a parking store for similar 10 years. I knew what it was similar to beryllium connected your luncheon break, eating your life, being tired, your feet sore, and scrolling connected your telephone conscionable looking for something. I wanted my enactment to beryllium thing that would find those radical successful the astir accessible place: connected their phones.”

In doing so, Salgado joined a increasing assemblage of poets connected societal media — helping revive an creation signifier which is being consumed astatine higher rates among U.S. young adults successful caller years.

Viral societal media trends similar “Instapoetry” and #poetrytok person allowed Latinos to not lone entree lit that resonates with them, but to consciousness empowered to go writers arsenic well, said Patrícia Lino, an subordinate prof of poesy and ocular arts astatine UCLA.

A period ago, the democratization of poesy was lone a dream. Today, everyone tin beryllium a writer acknowledgment to societal media, Lino said.

“The decease of poesy has been declared galore times passim history, but it’s ever transforming — and recently, it has transformed owed to societal media,” Lino said.

With poesy nary longer being confined to world journals oregon classrooms, Latinos person been capable to interruption done successful the publishing industry, wherever they marque up 7% of writers and authors, according to a 2022 study from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Poet Yesika Salgado poses for a representation connected the thoroughfare wherever immoderate of her enactment is inspired from successful Silverlake connected Feb. 10, 2021, successful Los Angeles. Salgado is the girl of Salvadorean immigrants and has lived successful Silverlake her full life.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

“It’s surreal that my poems are successful places that I thought I physically didn’t beryllium to,” said Salgado. “To cognize that my enactment is portion of curriculums and it’s work and studied.”

Social media allowed Salgado to cultivate a loyal readership by sharing her poesy for escaped earlier adjacent signing her archetypal publishing declaration for her book, “Corazón.” The screen is illustrated by a mango tree, symbolizing her parents’ location state of El Salvador. This is the archetypal publication retired of the trilogy poesy postulation that made her a No. 3 bestseller successful Amazon’s Hispanic American subcategory.

“I was conscionable penning poems astir my crazy-ass family. It’s conscionable truthful chaotic that the purest parts of me, the astir nooks and crannies, are the ones that radical link with the most,” Salgado said. “Especially, erstwhile I spent truthful galore years trying to go what I thought radical wanted. And the full time, what radical wanted was what I thought was undesirable.”

Finding healing and practice successful poetry

In 2021, the Los Angeles-based Mexican American writer Celia Martínez decided to station videos connected TikTok and Instagram of herself — crying, oregon with nary constitution connected — portion reciting poems astir modern dating and the challenges of being a first-generation Latina assemblage student.

“Social media is simply a precise nationalist place. I could person done [poetry] privately, but it’s 1 of those things that you besides recognize however beneficial it is to spot idiosyncratic that looks similar you, to perceive idiosyncratic that sounds similar you person those aforesaid feelings,” Martinez said.

Celia Martínez, a Mexican American writer and Yale University graduate, is photographed astatine Hollenbeck Park successful Los Angeles connected March 19, 2026. She has built a devoted assemblage online by sharing vulnerable, bilingual poesy astir love, heartbreak and modern romance.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

With the enactment of the much than 5 cardinal followers who tune into her bilingual poesy connected her societal media accounts, Diary of a Romantica and Power House of the Cel, Martínez has gone from Yale postgraduate to influencer and writer of 4 books — including 2025’s “A Magnificently Ordinary Romance,” which is distributed by Simon and Schuster.

“I would deliberation of my illustration arsenic benignant of a truly cute surviving room/open garden. And radical could travel successful and person a small cafecito, oregon a small beverage and perceive to poetry,” Martínez said. But she wants this abstraction to beryllium successful existent beingness too.

Social media has allowed the 26-year-old to gain wealth from her books, which Martínez uses to proceed her grooming successful medicine, a passionateness she wants to harvester with poetry.

After volunteering arsenic a Spanish interpreter astatine a escaped session during college, Martínez said her imagination has go to money a assemblage garden, wherever her patients person therapeutic attraction done the healing properties of sharing their stories — the aforesaid mode she did connected societal media.

Making poesy much accessible and culturally significant

For the 30-year-old self-published writer Vianney Harelly, penning poesy is an “imperfect, messy and ugly” process, wherever she is allowed to interruption each the rules that would bounds her creativity.

With ribbon bows that she sources from L.A.’s Fashion District, grammatically incorrect Spanglish poems and videos from her hometown of Tijuana, Harelly specializes successful visually-enriched lit that feels compelling for different bilingual Latina creatives from the border.

“Being idiosyncratic who is invited into universities and precocious schools, it conscionable makes maine consciousness truly arrogant of myself but besides precise honored to beryllium capable to beryllium the idiosyncratic that I needed erstwhile I was these people’s age,” Harelly said. “These radical request to spot that it is imaginable to beryllium an author, to beryllium a poet.”

Vianney Harelly, a writer who shares her poesy done societal media, holds her 3 self-published books portion sitting connected a seat astatine the plot wrong Hauser and Wirth successful Los Angeles connected April 1, 2026.

(Nicole Macias Garibay / De Los)

After Harelly moved to the Bay Area to survey originative penning astatine San Francisco State University, the bookworm felt a monolithic disconnect from the Eurocentric, English enactment she was assigned to work successful her classes. Harelly told 1 of her assemblage professors she was considering switching majors due to the fact that she felt similar she didn’t belong.

“They emailed maine back, and they were like: ‘There indispensable beryllium different radical that consciousness similar that too. Consider staying to beryllium that idiosyncratic for different people,’” Harelly said.

As her poesy videos became much fashionable connected the net successful 2021, she started selling books, journals and prints done societal media, wherever she has grown an assemblage of implicit 220,000 followers connected Instagram and TikTok.

“If I person ne'er ever touched societal media, there’s nary mode that I could beryllium wherever I americium today,” Harelly said. “It has opened galore doors for maine and galore doors for my art.”