Bruno Cooke talks to Darby Hudson, the bearded Australian poet in the cuddly jumper who started writing poetry to relieve “the quiet pain of existence” and now has 135K+ followers on TikTok and Instagram
Darby Hudson is a poet from Australia. If his name rings a bell, it may be because you read a recent piece we ran about poets who integrate social media into their creative practice, where we compared him with British poets Georgie Jones and Brian Bilston. You can find that piece here. Or maybe you’re one of his 135K+ followers on either TikTok or Instagram.
BC: I’d love to know more about how you got to where you are today. Was page poetry part of your journey from the beginning, or did you always see social media as a tool you wanted to integrate into your creative writing practice?
DH: I began as a cartoonist, thirty years ago. This was before social media, and there were few spots to have work published. In my twenties, humour was a way to understand the world. I made little zines (photocopied books of my work), which I sold in small zine shops in the 1990s. Then in my thirties, humour no longer felt like a tool to understand the world. I wanted to understand not just the world, but also my heart in the world. Poetry served this purpose.
So I ditched writing jokes, and wrote poetry in my mid thirties, after reading others’ poetic works. I found that their words could have a very similar effect to medicine. They could relieve the quiet pain of existence. This was a miracle. I wondered if I could write my own ‘medicine’. I wrote poetry for ten years, when I got home from my nine to five, and into my forties. I still had no real ‘audience’, except the audience of one – myself – but this was enough.
I had no audience for nearly thirty years – from 18 to 45, while I worked jobs I never loved. It’s only in the last four years that I’ve found an audience with social media, starting with Instagram. This began with posting micropoems. A single stanza conveyed a lot with a little; it was combustible.
A single stanza conveyed a lot with a little; it was combustible
A year ago, after mucking around with TikTok, the app suggested I make one-minute videos. I wondered how I could expand my writing to fill the form. It required about 200 words. I’d never done spoken word before. I never liked hearing others read their poetry; I’d get too distracted by the performative aspect of it, especially the dreaded affectation of ‘poet voice’, which, for me, is the distant cousin of ‘guitar face’. So it was because of TikTok that I readapted my style, and suddenly I found myself combining humour that I’d written in cartoons in my twenties with poetry I’d written through my thirties (and early forties), to form some kind of new thing that I’m exploring for now – a hybrid poetry-essay-humour-spoken word form. Rants, perhaps. Evolving my stuff has been a weird natural evolution of following my nose over thirty years, combined with my endless greedy need to make sense of an often-meaningless world.
BC: Who are some of the poets, writers and artists you admire and who have inspired you on your writing journey?
DH: Michael Leunig, a poet-cartoonist, was a profound early influence. I love the directness of Bukowski’s confessional prose poetry, and the Zen storytelling of Alan Watts (his smoker’s laugh is wonderful). I also like Nic Pizzolatto, who wrote the first season of True Detective. His philosophical monologues have inspired my new direction, which I’ve only just realised. And I’ve always loved David Lynch’s work.
I often feel that interviews with poets, artists and writers are more interesting than their actual work. To find their worldview behind the smoke and mirrors of their work has felt particularly enlightening. They cut their bullshit and get straight to their compass and their ‘true north’.
BC: Are there poets you admire who are working in the same digital space as you / whose work inspires yours / whom you would recommend to readers of The Friday Poem?
DH: Josh Turek, from Instagram and TikTok. He also mixes comedy and poetry. I recommend local (Australian) poet Beau Taplin, one of the first poets to popularise what’s now called ‘Instagram poetry’, back in the early 2010s. There was a fellow from Australia called ‘Aleks’ who I loved early on, while exploring social media poetry, but he’s disappeared and often deactivates his account. I miss his work.
But I’d say, don’t follow too many writers / artists working in the same space as you. Look at the artists from forty years ago. I find that modern artists are less courageous. They’re often scared of saying the wrong thing and are far too keen to say the right thing. Also, following too many artists who do similar stuff to you can get in the way of finding your own style. If you’re a poet, be inspired by directors. If you’re an artist, be inspired by musicians. I think video games make some of the best art these days – story, visuals, music, all of it. They should be in the Louvre. Alan Wake 2 was a great game.
I find that modern artists are less courageous. They’re often scared of saying the wrong thing and are far too keen to say the right thing
BC: Now that you’ve reached a position where you have followers and readers, do you have an idea of a goal you’re aiming to achieve? Are you pointing yourself towards going further with your social media persona, or do you see the success you’ve found as a stepping stone towards publishing more books, doing more gigs, and / or winning prizes?
DH: I love how social media cuts out the gatekeepers. You no longer need a publishing deal. But interestingly, the gatekeepers never truly left because the new ‘gatekeeper’ is us. Self-censorship is rife in a very precious, over-therapised culture. And if we self-censor, we’re unable to say true things, and therefore less likely to find a larger audience and a publishing deal. It takes courage to say real and true things.
For the moment, I’m still just following that same nose that has led me through thirty years of creative wilderness. Recently I was asked by one of Australia’s most well known comedians to put on a one-hour show of spoken word. This is trippy. He could sniff that I love ‘humour truths’ as much as ‘poetic truths’. One day I’d love to write a horror film – I’m not sure if I ever will because they need a single true and brilliant gimmick that might need a lightning strike of inspiration.
BC: I’m also curious to know – though I understand you might not want to be too specific – if your success with social media generates an income, and to what extent that is a motivating factor with what you do.
DH: I’ve been able to quit my nine-to-five work and focus full-time on writing and selling poetry books. I’m basically a retailer now, and my ‘boss’ is my audience. So it’s a funny balance. If I pander to my boss, it backfires. I don’t recommend ‘reading the room’ or you’re doing your audience (your boss) and yourself a creative disservice. Writing should guide you, not the other way around.
BC: Do you have any hints, tips or advice for other poets / creatives who want to reach a bigger audience?
DH: I guess, patience. Personally, I wrote to mostly an audience of one (myself) for thirty years. If I’d had more luck in my twenties and thirties, I’m not sure how helpful that might have been. I don’t think I’d be writing what I write now if I’d had early success. I feel like life said to me, ‘Sorry, Darby, you’re gonna have to wait and do a thirty-year apprenticeship in creativity to find your voice – I’m gonna make you wait a long time. Will you wait that long?’
I don’t think I’d be writing what I write now if I’d had early success
Most other artists/writers seem to give up if they haven’t achieved ‘success’ after ten years. It didn’t come quickly enough for them. And as for the artists and writers who did achieve ‘success’ in Australia thirty years ago – I look at their work now and I feel their stuff has stayed stagnant. They had early success and never had too much of the bullshit of real life to write about. They only had ‘success’ to write about. All credit to people who find an audience in less than five years. This just wasn’t my path.
On a more practical level, I’d say, if you write page poetry, also try posting videos. That’s where the world has been heading. Also post what you consider is a crappy idea. But above all, follow your nose.
BC: Who do you think of as your target audience? Has the audience you write for changed over time, as your approach to writing has changed? What are some of the more meaningful ways in which people have responded to your work?
DH: Well, writing for myself for a long time was like writing medicine for myself, and writing myself away from the craziness of being a person in the world. I was my own target audience for a long time. And I guess the inertia of writing for myself for thirty years can’t be stopped now – so I’m still writing for myself.
I have noticed though, that early on with Instagram (according to my stats), I mostly had a female audience when I posted page poetry. And as I became more humorous in my writing and started to front my poetry with my face and voice, more males have gravitated towards my work. Some have said my work has helped them through very dark times, which is incredible – this is what others’ work did for me, ten, twenty years ago. This is the loveliest thing ever, more than being able to pay my bills with it. When I posted more light-hearted stuff, some people commented that they missed my less cynical poetry.
BC: What were the turning points that led to the way you deliver your poems online?
DH: I listened to TikTok’s corporate algorithm and thought, why not? Weirdly, it helped improve my writing from ten-second punchy ditties to something closer to ‘storytelling’. Moving from these single meme-like poems, which I felt had all the nutrients of chewing gum, towards something over a minute long felt very freeing. Like it had awoken a part of me I didn’t know existed, let alone one that would be well received. This tripped me out. I’m glad I listened to what TikTok suggested I do!
At night, I’d write down a topic to write about, and then in the morning just fire-hydrant ideas out on that topic, still half in a morning dream
At night, I’d write down a topic to write about, and then in the morning just fire-hydrant ideas out on that topic, still half in a morning dream. This seemed to work. Then I’d record it, sitting on the couch still in my ‘pyjama jumper’. This was just what I happened to be wearing in the first five or ten videos that took off on TikTok. So after that, I thought I’d stick with it.
BC: [In a different conversation, Darby called this his ‘lucky jumper’.] You’ve got a collection out this year. Congratulations! How did this come about?
DH: I made a little podcast (Blah Di Da, on Spotify and Apple Podcasts), where I just crap on for ten minutes. I had to try making a podcast (this was nearly two years ago). It was very freeing – all of a sudden I was ‘writing with my mouth’. Just saying shit and letting stuff fall out of my face was a new way of coming up with ideas. More interesting stuff seems to happen this way, rather than having the few seconds of thinking-typing-reading on a screen get in the way.
One of these episodes I made was ‘Pretending to act normal in a weird world’, episode 27. This particular episode really took off. So I started writing and teasing out ideas from it for my initial spoken word videos. And I thought, since I’d worked in jobs for thirty years, why not write about those experiences, especially if it seemed to resonate with people? So that series of videos on the nine-to-five became the book Working Nine Lives (2024).
BC: Finally, do you have a sense of where your readers / fans / followers are based?
DH: They were mostly Australian for the first few years (I live in Australia), while posting page poetry. But as soon as I posted videos and spoken word, the videos (and my work) found more of an audience in the US. Nearly all my new books have been sold to the US. This trips me out. They seem to get my new work more than my compatriots!
