By Natalie Murphy

Like many who stow away confessions, secrets and poems in the notes app, University of Arkansas sophomore Harper Haynes’ writing became her escape. But unlike many who keep their notes for their own eyes, in eighth grade, Haynes began to share her work online. 

After the loss of her grandparents, she turned to social media as a way of coping with grief. Now, nearly five years later, she has accumulated over 26 thousand followers between her Tumblr and Instagram accounts, inspiring many through her words. 

Growing up in Maumelle, Arkansas, the queer poet and multimedia storyteller was always encouraged by her family to embrace her creativity. Her days, often spent in classrooms, were full of writing countless songs and stories along with the help of her friends. But with the new grief she dealt with following the death of her grandparents who once lived down the street, her writing became an extension of her childlike ways.

“It was definitely a way of release and processing this big tragedy,” she said. “I lost a lot of my family support group connections and leaned on writing.” 

Feeling somewhat of an outsider at school in a small town, she found refuge online through her Tumblr account Oozins, especially in the app’s music community. For nearly eight years, she sang in choir, immersing herself in a world of music lovers and even created a Taylor Swift fan page in her youth. 

Today, music still plays a large inspiration in Haynes’ writing. Usually struck by a lyric in a rock or folk song, her poems touch on themes of reminiscent summers, girlhood and growing up feeling isolated in the South, she said.

Her musically eclectic poetry is also extended in the form of multimedia collages. Usually paired with her writing, she creates visuals both by hand and digitally to further convey the ideas and emotions portrayed in her words. 

“My process has gotten pretty methodical at this point. I’ve got this huge archive of all my clippings going back to eighth grade, so I know which era I’m cutting stuff out of,” she said.

The collages she shares online have also played a role in her large following and have given her opportunities to work with small musicians such as Hana Bryanne, for which she created the cover art to her single “Holy Ground”.

One thing to note about Haynes following is that they are very loyal. Some have even followed her since she first began back in 2017 on Tumblr and continue to follow her on her Instagram account Ophanims she created in 2019. 

Her demographic largely consists of women and queer folk, who share similar experiences implemented in her writing. When she first started on Tumblr, she said it was the first place she was ever able to interact with LGBTQ-aligned people, coming from a small, largely conservative town. 

Not only do these platforms provide connection, but also inspiration. She is often highly credited for themes portrayed in her followers’ writing. Also, small artists and musicians, such as the up-and-coming indie singer-songwriter Searows, follow her account and are inspired by her artistry. 

While Haynes tends to not look at her following and care about the numbers, her accumulation of supporters blows her mind, she says. 

“I don’t go through my following enough. I’m not used to the influencer routine, so I don’t do it at all. I just treat it like an archive basically,” Haynes said. 

For Haynes, her account is just another way of self expression and creation, rather than a place of inspiration for others. Much of her online work comes from her intimate journals, filled to the brim with poems, magazine scrap collages, green smeared paint, and old family photos.

In the last year, Haynes had to re-acquaintance herself with grief after the passing of her mother. She said for a period of time after her death she was unable to create and powered through school as a means to keep herself going.

“Time doesn’t feel real in comparison to that. But I didn’t write at all. I couldn’t write at all. I was just stuck and now it’s been the wave of stuff I kept blocked up. I’m definitely a person who keeps things bottled up so poetry is my number one outlet,” she said.

Haynes poetry is a form of therapy and healing. From her experiences with loss, comes the reason she writes. 

“My work is about relief and expression. I feel incomplete and unmoored if I haven’t made art about something, and it just centers me so much in that way,” the artist notes.

To Haynes, her creations are like a time capsule, tracing back the loss of friends, family, romantic partners and other past memories. 

After inheriting photo albums and sentimental pieces of her mom, she was left with few stories attached to them which inspired her to leave her legacy in writing for those that proceed her she said. 

“It’s a magpie collection of my brain. It’s like all my favorite shiny objects. It’s definitely got an aspect of scrapbooking now. After my mom’s passing I got way more into making it more like an archive, so my kids can some day look back and know what I was like when I was her age,” Haynes said. 

While the writer does share a large portion of her life with her online audience, she said there are some personal pieces of work in her journal she has chosen to keep for herself. Though it should be noted, she is appreciative of her platform and ability to positively affect her viewers through shared experiences.

With this in mind, Haynes said there may be a place for them to be read in the future. She is currently working on getting a collection of her poems and art published and sold in bookstores in Fayetteville. It will be a compilation of mostly new, though some old, pieces of her writing and collages. The poet said some of her more vulnerable works may grace the pages giving them a more proper and formal home, rather than her Tumblr and Instagram. 

“Sometimes things aren’t for the internet, but are for a book,” she concluded.