Kathia Huitrón was born and raised near the Baja California peninsula in Mexico but she’s always had an affinity for English literature. Not only did her love of English writing inspire her to study literature in university, it’s also what birthed her writing career.
Kathia’s known she’s wanted to be a writer since she was 13 and began writing poetry as a teenager. Since then, she’s published three books of poetry, including one which was published under the pseudonym S.W. Collins. Kathia has amassed a 17,000-strong following on Instagram and collaborated with her Instagram poetry community to publish an anthology. In order to make all this happen, Kathia learned a variety of skills to publish herself.
We featured Kathia’s poem “Fear of the Dark” in our latest anthology Light (The Soap Box: Volume IV), and we absolutely loved it! We decided to sit down with Kathia — from a safe physical distance, of course — to get to know her and her poetry better. Her conversation with Marcus began with what drove her to start writing in the first place.
When did you first start creative writing and why?
I’ve been writing since I can remember. I was very creative and I had a big imagination, but I didn't know what books were, I didn't like to read. I hated to read until I was like 13. And I started reading what everybody started reading at that time, you know like Harry Potter, Twilight. And ever since I discovered these books I kind of knew what to put my imagination into. And I was like, “I think I want to be a writer” and I started writing consciously from there.
What was it that specifically drew you to poetry?
I always wrote when I was little but I always thought that I was writing songs. I have a very strong connection to music and later on, I discovered that maybe I wasn't writing songs, maybe I was writing poems. And so I started to kind of get rid of the music, well not get rid of the music because I think that poetry in itself has rhythm and has a certain type of melody.
I read in your bio that you are also a translator, what other languages do you speak?
I'm Mexican so I speak Spanish.
And does speaking Spanish or knowing Spanish influence your writing in English?
Um, yes and no. So I think it's actually the other way around. Because I write in Spanish but most of what I write in Spanish is, you know, narrative. So, I write short stories and I have a novel here, but poetry for me in Spanish, I don't know why it's always been really hard. I don't know if it’s because it's my native language and it feels more personal; I feel more vulnerable I guess. So I started writing in English, first of all, because there's a huge influence in my life of English literature and I love English literature. It's kind of why I started writing poetry. So because of that I write in English. And I feel like my poetic influences are more British or American so that's why poetry in English feels easier.
Another thing that I read your bio, it's actually something you and I have in common, is that you're an editor. And when you do your editing are you editing poetry and creative writing or other kinds of writing?
Well, mostly poetry. Yes.
Has working as an editor editing poems changed your approach to writing poetry?
Yeah, definitely. It is something that I've struggled with a lot actually. Because, you know, when you're a writer you have a certain voice and a certain way you like things to sound or whatever. And sometimes it's really hard to say, “No, you're an editor. You're not a writer at this moment. Don't try to put your personal taste in other people's writing. Also, because I studied language and literature in university, I am in contact with writers and editors and when they started editing my work, I learned so much from what they were saying that I started writing differently, but then I also started to edit differently.
When you're doing your own creative writing, who are some of the people you go to for feedback?
Well, for poetry in English it's been hard because I live in Mexico, so there's not a lot of people here that understand English at that level. But the first people that started to tell me, “Oh, your poetry is so good” were my friends. But then I thought, well, they're my friends. I mean, they're supposed to say nice things, I don't know, can I trust them? But then Instagram happened and people started to give me feedback on Instagram and I was like, well maybe I'm not Shakespeare but if people like what I'm writing that means I'm doing something good. I do however have a writing group here in Mexico. I don't know how I got into it but I'm there with some of the well known writers from our state. And we have a group where we discuss our writing every two weeks or so and just getting feedback from them, they have a lot of experience, has been really really helpful.
How old were you when you started your Instagram account and started getting feedback from people other than your friends?
I was 18.
And would you say that that is when poetry for you became something that you were pursuing more professionally as opposed to something you were doing as a hobby?
Yeah, definitely because I started posting my poetry on Instagram and I started gaining followers and building a community there. And when I reached 10,000 followers, I was like, man, I need to publish a book because this is something.
I wanted to talk to talk to you about instapoetry. It's a hot topic in the literary world again with Rupi Kaur winning the Writer of the Decade last year. There were articles left and right about whether or not instapoetry has any merit because some people absolutely love it and some people hate it. I'm guessing because you're on Instagram, and that's where you got your main following, that you're someone who supports it, but I wanted to know specifically what is your opinion of even just the term instapoetry or instapoet?
Yeah, it is kind of a controversial topic at least in the literary world because, like I said, I studied literature at university so there's a lot of people that, you know, say well, like you just said, that instapoetry has no real merit. But I think that yes, it's true that trends like this can help a piece that's not as good, or everybody can call themselves poets or whatever, it's true. But at the end of the day I think that it is a platform and it allows people that maybe have never approached poetry or think that poetry is something really hard and that they cannot understand, to kind of help them understand it a little bit better and fall in love with it. It's a stepping stone to something else. So I think that it does have merit; it's not as easy as it looks. And I think that at the end of the day, we've moved forward and technology is something very big in our lives right now. And it definitely is changing the world.
A lot of the points that you said are things that I've thought about as I was doing my research for this article. One of the things that came up about instapoets is another word for them would be an Instagram Poet-Entrepreneur. And I wanted to know your opinion. What are your thoughts on looking at an instapoet as a Instagram Poet-Entrepreneur?
I think it's spot on in a way. Obviously, because you start with Instagram, you have to learn to do other things, like edit photos or edit your own poetry. Marketing: how do you promote yourself? And then, there's a lot of demand for publishing and not a lot of offers so there's a lot of self-publishing. And that means again, learning to do things yourself, like promoting your work yourself. And at the end of the day, it is kind of like entrepreneurship. Some people do it big like Rupi Kaur that could get herself a publishing contract or many other poets that I see on Instagram that have a lot of followers and are self-published and still make—maybe not so much—money but get something out of it, you know.
I went through your Instagram page and I read some of the poems, and in addition to the poems themselves just being really striking, there's a nice aesthetic to your posts. It just looks nice but not exactly in a uniform way. So I wanted to know, what are some of the decisions you go through when you're putting your posts together?
Actually for me, that's been the hardest part because I'm a very indecisive person. So, I always change my mind and sometimes think, “hey, this looks very pretty” and then I'm like, “no, doesn't look that good.” For example, one thing I’ve noticed is that people react better to shorter poems because they can read them faster. So at the beginning, that was what I was trying to do. Then I was like, “Well, I'm just gonna go ahead and do whatever I want.” But it's something that I still struggle with, trying to find aesthetic things to put in there. Because sometimes you see someone else's Instagram and say, “Hey, this looks so pretty. I wish I could do it like that.” But you have to be true to your style and not try to copy anyone else's. Because at the end of the day, what worked for them was that they were doing their own thing. So yeah, it's something I struggle with, but I'm trying to get there.
How would you describe your style to someone else?
Wow, that's very hard.
I know, I’m sorry. I'm a writer and I hate that question.
I think like I said, I have a lot of music influence in me. So, I feel like my poems have to have a certain rhythm. And I feel like it's a combination of —well at least I try to make it like—English classic literature which I love and modern poetry right now. It's influenced greatly by Instagram and poetry and what’s around, so I think that it's a mixture of those two.
If you were to meet someone who doesn't like poetry or who has never given poetry a chance, what would you say to highlight some of the benefits of poetry?
I actually have met people that say that they don't like poetry, in my career, at university. If you're studying Eastern literature, why don't you like poetry? And I think it's like what I said, they feel like it's complicated and they cannot understand it.
Well, I guess I would tell them about my experience because I was one of those people that said poetry is too hard, I will never understand it. But for me right now, it's a way to connect with other people in the sense that you find a bit of yourself in the person that wrote it and kind of understand that you're not alone. That you're feeling the same thing that someone else has felt and it kind of feels like you're connected.
Because the whole world has been in a shutdown of sorts for the last two months, there's a lot of time for creative projects. Plus, April was National Poetry Month. So if you’re someone trying their hand at poetry for the first time, what advice do you have?
I would say that it takes a lot of practice. So of course, the first poem that you're going to write, it's not going to be perfect or it sometimes is not even gonna be any good. It's just gonna be a lot of bad things. I mean, that happens often enough. Just try to write whatever you're feeling, don’t think too much about it and once it's on the page you can start tweaking it. Maybe you start to think, “Maybe I shouldn't use this word. Maybe I should use this other word that has the same meaning,” and things like that. And just practice a lot and once you start to develop your style then things will go more smoothly.
And I think that's something that a lot of people are doing. A lot of people are turning to the arts right now, whether they're creating it or they're just consuming it. What do you think people can learn about the importance or the role of the arts from a situation like this?
People always say that well, at least here in Mexico it’s always the same. They tell you that artistic careers don't really matter because you're not going to get paid [a high salary / very well / a lot of money] or whatever. But at the end of the day, I think that literature, things like poetry, music, and painting and all of that express humanity because it's created by a human being. So it's going to have emotions or situations that can help you empathize with human beings. And I think that's what literature has done for me, maybe make me more empathic to other people's ways of thinking or living or acting for things that I don't understand. Now I know that they exist or they are for a reason. And I think that's what art can do, make you more empathic. So maybe right now that we are allowed that time to be more connected with those things, we can learn that.
So you have three books, South, Human E Quation, and You, Me, and our Beautiful Madness, could you tell me the meanings behind each of those titles?
Well, You, Me and our Beautiful Madness was the first one I published. And I guess I was trying to go for something that was very romantic. I don't know how I came up with it but I was like, “Oh, this is something pretty and I think people will be interested to look at it once they see the title.” I was publishing under a pseudonym, so when I started Instagram, I started with that with the name S.W. Collins. I guess it was also because I felt very vulnerable and I just wanted to express myself without being judged. So I was starting to write from a male perspective because the boys that I was reading on Instagram and in our books, were all male. They had a way to talk about women or whatever and I was like, “Oh, that's kind of pretty. I want to try that.” But later on, I was like, “No, I have my own voice. I have my own struggles and as a woman, there are enough male poets out there. I have to do right by females and write from my female perspective. So South was kind of reclaiming my identity and allowing myself to be more vulnerable. I live in the south of the Baja California peninsula so south to me means home, means the ocean, means all of that, so that was what I wanted to portray. And Human E Quation is actually an anthology of different poets on Instagram. I wanted to do an anthology with the writing community. We donated the profits to children in the arts.
What were you able to learn from You, Me, and our Beautiful Madness that was able to help you when you're putting together South?
It was more technical things than anything. For example, I was more familiar with the self-publishing platform, Lulu, and how that worked. I was familiar with how revenue worked, how I could make changes if I didn't like what was in the book, and how to edit it. The second book is longer and I think has a little bit more on the inside. It’s more neat and clean and also has more images and so it was more about the editing process than anything else.
There is one last question that I wanted to ask you. You said that how you started getting into poetry was through writing songs and then you realized that your songs might actually be poems. Have you ever considered combining music with your poetry in a project in the future?
I have thought about it. Not like a project per se, but I have thought about more spoken word poetry because I do write songs and I play the piano. Writing songs keeps me entertained, so I don't know. I wouldn't know how to do one thing in the middle of them, you know, that's not song and not poetry but like a combination of them. That would be really hard for me.
Maybe you’re like Kathia and you’ve been writing songs that are actually poems. Or maybe you’ve never written a poem in your life. Either way, if you’re feeling up for it, why not give yourself something fun and creative to do during self-isolation and write a poem. There a ton of great writing prompts out there for those needing some quick inspiration as well as blogs with some of the best poems to help get your creative juices flowing. If you’re taking up a poetry month challenge or just reflecting during this time of turmoil, we want to hear from you! You can share your poems with us on any of our social channels, and we might just share it with our community. It could be the start of a burgeoning poetry career or simply a quaint way to spend your afternoon. Regardless of what you decide, we support you and believe in the transformative power of poetry and its ability to connect people.