"Poetry is the Language of the Soul": Najwa Zebian on Instapoetry, Literary Value, and the Healing Power of Words

Najwa Zebian is a Lebanese-Canadian author, speaker, educator, and one of the most recognizable voices associated with contemporary Instapoetry. After self-publishing her first two books, Mind Platter (2016) and The Nectar of Pain (2016), Zebian built an international readership on Instagram before signing with Andrews McMeel Publishing, which republished both collections and published several subsequent books. Although frequently categorized as an Instapoet—or, more recently, as a wellness or self-development writer—her work resists easy categorization, moving fluidly across poetry, prose, digital media, public speaking, and self-development.

Zebian’s work occupies an important place within contemporary debates about literary value, the cultural status of Instapoetry, and the possibilities and limitations of social media as a literary platform. Rooted in her diasporic experience and longstanding commitment to healing through language, her writing emphasizes accessibility, emotional resonance, and the transformative potential of poetry.

I spoke with Zebian about her transition from self-publishing to traditional publishing, debates over literary value and poetic form, the role of Instagram in shaping her career, and the relationship between poetry, healing, and digital media. The interview was conducted over Microsoft Teams and has been edited for clarity.

Kiera Obbard:  What was it about Instagram specifically that was helpful or beneficial for you in sharing your poetry? In growing your career?

Najwa Zebian: It’s helpful to remember that Instagram, at the time, was the big thing. So many people were using Instagram. It gave you an advantage to be on it because so many people were on it. That was the place where you could reach people from all over the world.

It gave me an opportunity to reach a community of people who were looking for healing and using poetry to help them on their journey. In a few words, you could really move someone to feel something or heal something. So, it could be forgiveness, it could be a very short poem or something like “These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb”—a poem which [spread] everywhere. And then I could make videos about different topics that could represent the mountains, and how you do climb them instead of carrying them. I was able to share my work in multiple formats to make sure that whatever it was that people responded to within their own healing, whatever they responded to best, they had available to them. So, the fact that it allows you to post in multiple formats is incredible—that was really helpful.

Kiera Obbard: How did you come to sign with Andrews McMeel Publishing?

Najwa Zebian: My very first book, Mind Platter, I self-published and then within 10 months I self-published another book of poetry, The Nectar of Pain. They were doing so well—people from all over the world were buying them and responding to them.

Then I was approached by Andrews McMeel. They sent me an e-mail saying that they would love to talk about a publishing deal that included them taking on those two books and republishing them, and a third book. And so that’s how that started. 

I didn’t have a literary agent at the time. I didn’t even know that I needed to because when I first started writing, my intention was never to publish anything. It was honestly my way of healing myself. And when I started seeing others responding to it… Initially it started with me helping my students. I would write short snippets to empower them. They were like a group of eight refugees who had arrived from Libya and I came to Canada when I was 16 years old. So, I really resonated with their cry to fit in and belong and have a voice and re-established themselves. So, I started writing to help them heal and I realized I was doing the same for myself at the same time. 

I didn’t expect that my work was going to blow up the way that it did so. When [Andrews McMeel] reached out to me, I didn’t have a literary agent. I didn’t even know that they like were integral to the publishing process. 

So, I went and found a literary agent and I learned a lot.  

Kiera Obbard: Once you did sign with Andrews McMeel Publishing, did that change how you perceive yourself as a poet or an author? Did you feel that prestige of being traditionally published versus self-publishing? 

Najwa Zebian: I do remember having conversations with my dad, for example, who writes poetry in Arabic. He was saying that being with a publisher adds a different level of credibility and I was a little bit influenced by that. But to answer your question, I didn’t feel a difference because my work was always from the heart and a way to heal and make sense of everything that was around me and to give myself a voice and others. So, it just continued that way.

There was a lot that I learned that is required when you become traditionally published. You know, you’re committed to different appearances and stuff like that, but it didn’t change the way I felt about myself or about the poetry that I was writing. I also learned a lot about the power that publishing houses have over the visibility that you have. So, whereas before I had 100% of that power when I was self-published, now it was different.

Kiera Obbard: What would you say your relationship is to Instagram today and how would you characterize its role in your continuing career? 

Najwa Zebian: I always ask myself this question that keeps me tied to my purpose. And the question is: “If Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and all these social media platforms were to stop existing tomorrow, would people search for my work?”. 

And the answer has always been yes. They would search for my work because it is so much bigger than just being conveniently present on these platforms. So, I keep that—it grounds me and also humbles me. And it also reminds me that I don’t have to constantly be working and growing my audience. Nothing is better than authentic growth and people coming to my work because they were genuinely moved by a video that they saw somewhere or they saw my book sitting on someone’s coffee table and they opened it, which happens so much.

Kiera Obbard: Instagram has been criticized for its effects on mental health, particularly for young women. How do you navigate those harms personally and as someone whose work reaches that audience?

Najwa Zebian: The kind of work I put out there and those who do the same is what is combatting that negative effect that social media can have on teenage girls and people in general. In the midst of scrolling through countless images and highlight reels, you’re exposed to something that makes you stop and think and feel safe being vulnerable. And then you click on the comments, or you go to the profile and you see there’s a whole community of people talking about these things or feeling this way or thinking this way. 

Yes, there are risks that come with being too exposed to this kind of material because it could trigger you. It’s not easy to, for example, read a poem on forgiveness or on trauma and just say, “OK, this helped me” because it could stay with you for the entire day. And then, because of how the algorithm works, it could snowball into now your entire feed is showing you stuff like that, so you might feel like you’re too close to the pain. I understand that. 

But in the grand scheme of things, having content out there that urges people to heal their wounds and to look for a more authentic experience with their own lives and feel safe being vulnerable instead of trying to make everything look perfect in their lives and embrace that messiness that happens…I think that is serving your mental health—if you can find ways to navigate exposing yourself to these kinds of poems and posts and doing the work at the same time so that you can get to a place where all that other negative stuff and negative noise isn’t so appealing as a distraction from real life. 

Kiera Obbard: Your poetry touches on a lot of important topics teenage girls need to be aware of, but also everyone else. And I’m thinking particularly of your writing on relationships and things like gaslighting and narcissist abuse. 

Najwa Zebian: Yeah, it really could save someone in their time of struggle. There is such a big difference between content that, like I said, urges you to think of yourself and your life differently and see your experience clearly. Not distractions from real life and from the struggle that you’re going through, but content that helps you navigate that and understand it. There’s a difference between content like that and content that’s just like—and I say this with no judgment, obviously—people who built their platforms on just pictures of their lives. I have no judgment of that, but there is a difference between the kind of content I just described and the kind of content that’s just saying, “Look at my life and how it is”. There’s a big difference between those two types of content. One you scroll and you forget about it, the other one can really make a huge difference in your life.  

Kiera Obbard: Speaking of judgment… Instapoetry is often criticized within academia and literary circles for lacking literary complexity. How do you respond to those criticisms?

Najwa Zebian: I’ll begin by saying that my definition of poetry is that it’s the language of the soul. Every person can be a poet and a poem doesn’t have to look a certain way. It doesn’t have to look a certain way and it doesn’t have to use complex words. Poetry is the language of the soul. You can say it out loud, or you could write it on a piece of paper, you could publish it on Instagram, it could be four lines or it could be an entire book.  

So, I guess it depends on what definition of poetry a person is going by, that they would make that kind of judgment. The depth that’s present in poetry and the potential it has to make a person who’s going through something feel seen and heard and like they’re not alone, that to me is more important than the opinion of a person who says Instapoetry is ruining poetry. What’s our goal with the words that we write and with the work that we do? It’s to help people heal and make sense of a struggle they’re going through and to feel empowered to be unstuck in their life or in a certain relationship that they’re going through, in their school program—at the end of the day, that’s the goal.

If somebody is going to only look at one aspect of poetry and say, “Well, if it doesn’t look this way or sound this way or doesn’t use complex words, then we’re not going to see it as poetry”, then you’re discounting the entire content and the impact that it could have and that it does have. 

There are people who have never picked up a book and now they will pick up a book of poetry [because of Instapoetry]. And it’s not just because it’s a short read. As I’ve said before, it’s because there is power in it to truly transform a person’s life with fewer words than you would normally expect. So, even though I understand where they’re coming from because I’ve learned a lot about preserving your culture and identity…But when you look at the positive impact that this work has had in the past 10 years or 15 years, that says something about the evolution of it, that’s necessary for it to continue reaching more and more people.  

Kiera Obbard: There’s also an ethical complexity to using Instagram. Although Instagram has provided a wonderful platform and community for poets, the application itself also does harm through things like its addictive design, which has to be mitigated. What are your thoughts on this tension between the positive benefit and the potential harms of posting your poetry on Instagram?  

Najwa Zebian: Yes, an app like Instagram, obviously, it’s a business. It does want you to scroll for longer periods of time and to stay on it for longer periods of time. It’s the same with every other app out there, and it’s the same with TV programs and anything that could offer people a form of distraction—like when you look at addiction. If you really want to look at research on addiction, we get addicted to things that make us somehow feel like we belong. It’s covering up for an internal issue that we have or an internal need that we have, an internal emptiness. And so, we find that very quick hit of dopamine. 

I understand that, but why don’t we look into ways that we can make this addiction have a positive impact and offer ways to lessen that addiction instead of just saying, “Well, it’s all bad because this is what it’s designed for”? 

There are people who have truly changed their lives with content online, whether it’s Instagram or Facebook or TikTok. You have to look at that, too—you can’t just look at the design of the apps and say this is all bad. It could be used for good and it could be used for bad, and so [it’s a positive] to have educational and informative materials available out there. It’s the responsibility of these platforms to educate people on the potential negative impacts on your brain but also push out content that promotes that kind of message.

But if you look at me, for example, in isolation of all other creators or people on social media, my mission is to help people heal. So, I’m going to use places where I can send that message out and reach more and more people. If I can do my part in combating the negative impacts, I’m going to do that. Nobody’s going to stop me. So I understand where they’re coming from, but the question comes down to, “What can I do?”. And I’m doing what I’m able to.  

Kiera Obbard: Yeah. Because the alternative is to not have your kind of content on Instagram and only have potentially harmful content, right? So that’s not a good solution either, obviously. 

Najwa Zebian: No. I come from a teaching background¹. The very first thing you think of when you want to teach a lesson is how do I hook these students? So, if I want to give a lesson on the fungi kingdom in Science, I’m not just going to start by talking about that because I’m going to lose my Grade 10 students. It’s of no interest to them. So, I might start with a hook using, for example, the mushrooms in Super Mario. 

You have to spend a minute or a few seconds making a relevant, contextual connection to the person you’re trying to reach, and then you teach them what they need to learn. So I keep that in mind. In order to reach people the right way, we have to look at what means something to them right now, what’s relevant in their lives. And so, if they’re on social media, you have to be on social media to get that message to them.  

Kiera Obbard: Is there anything else that you want to share that we haven’t talked about? 

Najwa Zebian: This [is] a message to the people who are starting out sharing their poetry because I get many messages saying, how do I do what you did? How do I promote my work and build my platform and whatever? 

I’ll always say the most important thing is that that is not your number one concern. I started with my focus on putting my thoughts and emotions out there as real and raw as they possibly could be. I’ve never had a—what do you call it when somebody has a theme on their page where one post is a photo and then a video? I’ve never had that even though that was the number one piece of advice I got from any branding company. 

And that might help, but that’s not the most important thing. It’s focused on writing your work exactly as it comes to you. Don’t worry about the opinion of others. You will find your audience when you put that work out there. It’s not the other way around. You can’t decide what your audience is going to be and then write. If you want to write the language of the soul, that’s my input. 

Footnotes

1. Zebian graduated with a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Western University in 2022. ↩