way that complicates the 

narrative of the internet as a 
void of narcissism. There’s an 
intentional 
and 
maintained 

level of anonymity that feels 
very 
akin 
to 
the 
mythic 

recluses 
and 
anonymously 

published poets of the print 
canon.

And online, a community 

has 
formed. 
Poets 
can 

communicate, 
read 
one 

another’s 
work 
and 
talk 

from across the globe. It’s 
a 
community 
that 
values 

authenticity, something that 
the medium often facilitates 
more 
than 
traditional 

print media. No editors, no 
publishers, all that stands 
between a poem and the world 
is a click.

Some 
poets, 
like 
@pds.

literate, 
use 
Instagram 
in 

a similar way. They post 
pictures, often screenshots 
from iPhone notes or stylized 
photo collages, of their poems. 
For many poets, the roots of 
this kind of publication are 
more based in street art and 
photography. Because Twitter 
poetry 
has 
historically 

favored canon or traditional 
poetry, Instagram is an outlet 
for poets who can sometimes 
feel left out or overwhelmed 
by the noise of Twitter.

The draw of these online 

platforms 
as 
opposed 

to 
traditional 
forms 
of 

publication — even small-
scale 
self-publication 
— 

for many young writers is 
the instant accessibility of 
their 
art. 
Publication 
is, 

realistically, a lot of work for 
little 
readership, 
whereas 

in an instant a tweet or an 
Instagram post is available 
to anyone with Wi-Fi. In that 
way, the internet actually 
becomes what Silicon Valley 
always dreamed it could be: a 
great equalizer.

Anyone who writes can be 

published and anyone who 
reads can come across poetry.

Some people think this is 

all just horrible narcissism. 
Poetry is just another thing 
for millennials to kill, to 
over-post it into oblivion. The 
self-awareness is seen as self-
absorption, and 140 characters 
— or 280 if you’re one of the 
lucky (or cursed) who got to 
use the boosted count in beta 
— just isn’t enough for a poem.

Twitter 
becomes 
a 

microcosm for the English 
language, 
which 
can 
be 

beautiful 
and 
stupid, 
and 

often both at once. This new 
wave of internet poets has 
seized on the possibilities, 
viewing every tweet as a poem 
or part of a poem.

Then, like in traditional 

print poetry, the reader is 
tasked with making sense of 
it. Is the individual tweet the 
poem or is it the whole feed? 
And, of course, the answer 
is both. The medium allows 
poets to publish their process, 
send words or phrases or 
sentences out into the world 
and see how readers respond 
to them — what they retweet 
and what they scroll past. The 
platform 
is 
revolutionizing 

the way people make and 
interact with poetry.

Internet 
poetry 
— 
like 

all worthwhile art — is an 
adventure in sifting through 
dirt (and sometimes shit) to 
find gold. The fact that the 
pile of dirt has grown doesn’t 
dim the gold’s glow.

It feels natural that people 

have taken this cold and 
detatched thing — Twitter, 
Instagram, the internet — and 
animated it with art. What 
could be more right than that?

songs, a rigid schedule is 

never set.

“I’ve always felt limited 

by writing vocals,” he said. 
“Writing 
words, 
I 
would 

just stay up until 3 a.m. until 
something came to me and 
something just came out and 
was like this is what sounds 
good 
here 
and 
it 
should 

happen.”

It’s a decisively informal 

creative 
process 
that 
fits 

Stoitsiadis’s 
style 
well, 

paralleling 
the 
decisively 

informal way he first started 
to make music.

However, while the method 

has remained constant, the 
way 
Stoitsiadis 
personally 

defines 
DIY 
music 
is 

something that has changed 
significantly over the years.

“When 
I 
first 
started,” 

he said, “DIY was sort of 
just doing it all by yourself… 
and kind of rejecting any 
help you can get. But, as I’ve 
kind of grown and the band 
has grown, and we’ve been 
exposed to this community 
of people who believe the 
same way; it’s kind of like now 
you’ve got to open yourself 
up to others and you’ve got to 
take inspiration from others 
and give inspiration to them.”

It’s a constructive back-and-

forth of ideas, a connection 
that seems integral to the 
expansion of DIY music.

Out of basements, living 

rooms 
and 
cafe 
corners, 

music is being made. It’s not 
perfect. Like all forms of art, 
it has its shortcomings. But 
no matter what your opinion 
is on this type of sound, there 
is no denying the passion and 

resourcefulness behind these 
underground explorations of 
artistic expression.

There is no denying the 

significance of bands like 
Dogleg. 
Especially 
during 

live shows, their preference 
to play smaller venues allows 
them to easily build a level of 
intimacy with the crowd.

“We always prefer to play 

houses,” Stoitsiadis said. “It 
just allows us to get close with 
the crowd and talk to people, 
like right after and during 
the show. And just be more 
connected.”

In addition, the way Dogleg 

genuinely seem to appreciate 
and become motivated by the 
support of listeners allows 
them, and potentially the rest 
of the DIY music community, 
to be seen as approachable.

“I 
think 
just 
knowing 

that somebody out there is 
listening to us,” he said, “and 
just like really connecting 
with us is what makes me keep 
wanting to write more songs.”

It’s this selfless gratitude 

that highlights the strength 
of groups like Dogleg; their 
dedication has the potential 
to influence others to strive 
and create similar DIY spaces 
in Ann Arbor.

Above all else, DIY art 

simply empowers creativity: 
the ability to take that initial 
low-quality recording device 
and turn it into something 
that is so much more.

You can listen Dogleg on 

Bandcamp and Spotify and 
follow them on Twitter and 
Facebook.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Thursday, September 28, 2017 — 3B

TWITTER
From Page 2B

DOGLEG
From Page 2B

It’s an unassuming lot — 

that is, if you make it out 
there. Nestled in a quiet, hilly 
patch of various shades of 
green next to the Matthaei 
Botanical 
Gardens, 
seven 

miles from Central Campus, 
sit an un-showy few plots of 
land. Deftly manicured rows 
of crops, a full, working hoop 
house, an abundance of hoses 
watering plants — even though 
we’re definitely not on campus, 
this is the Campus Farm.

***

Founded in 2012 by a group of 

graduate students, the Campus 
Farm 
is 
a 
self-sustaining, 

student-run, year-round farm. 
There are 10 student managers 
that oversee almost all aspects 
of the operation, from planting 
to harvesting to distribution, 

and every Friday, about 40 
volunteers It’s one of those 
“Duh!” 
extracurriculars, 
if 

you get what I mean — you had 
never heard about it, but once 
you did, of course that makes 
sense.

Engineering 
junior 
Carly 

Sharp is one of those 10 student 
managers. She’s also in charge 
of 
coordinating 
volunteers 

for Volunteer Workdays every 
Friday.

“It’s 
a 
living-learning 

community, so the idea is to 
bring students out there to 
learn more about agriculture,” 
she said. “It’s meant to provide 
a space for students to get a 
chance to see where their food 
comes from and its impacts on 
the environment.”

The Campus Farm is funded 

by grants and donations, but 
as a model of sustainability, 
its recent Good Agricultural 
Practices 
certification 
has 

been a huge step forward for 
the program.

Previously, Campus Farm 

produce was sold to Argus 
Farm Stop (a local produce 
stop) or Student Food Co., 
or 
volunteers 
and 
student 

managers would take home 
what was left. In the past 
year, the program hired a full-
time manager to help achieve 
GAP certification, and ever 

since, the Campus Farm has 
sold much of its produce to 
the University dining halls 
and the Ross Business School 
Executive Suite.

“I feel like the cool thing 

about the farm selling to the 
dining halls is that it’s full 
circle, almost like we grow the 
food that we eat,” Sharp said. 
“We grow food for students, 
and the students that come out 
and volunteer grow food for 
other students.”

Katie 
Samra, 
another 

school yeat student manager, 
tells me that every Sunday 
at noon, when the Campus 
Farm sends out its emails 
detailing the harvest list for 
the coming week, MDining 
is often the first to respond, 
within a matter of minutes. 
The program even helped the 
University 
dining 
program 

achieve its goal of sourcing at 
least 25 percent of its produce 
from local, sustainable options.

***

As weekly volunteers mill 

about — some experienced 
gardeners and some first-time 
freshmen — student managers 
implore them to wash their 
hands. This is food to be 
harvested, bought and sold, 
after all.

Groups 
are 
made 
and 

volunteers are split up: Some 
will help with the weeding, 
some will help to clean up 
around the farm and some 
will 
actually 
help 
harvest 

the 
crops. 
The 
latter 
are 

then taken aside for a long 
instruction period about food 
handling, 
cleanliness 
and 

safety by Jeremy, the recent 
full-time hire; the Campus 
Farm places a great deal of 
importance on cleanliness and 
good agricultural practice.

In the first plot, there are 

rows upon rows of tomatoes, 
peppers and lettuce mixes. 
In the hoop house — recently 
built, and of which there will 
be two more very soon — is an 
assortment of kale and chard. 
The farm isn’t like one you’re 
used to; it’s smaller, more 
compact. But it is impressively 
well-maintained — and quite a 
sight to behold.

***

Christian Mackey, a first-

year Masters student in the 
School of Public Health, is 
a program director for the 
Student Food Co., which is 
an organization dedicated to 
making 
produce 
affordable 

and convenient for students on 
campus. As one of the Campus 
Farm’s main buyers, SFC has 
been, in Mackey’s experience, 
nothing but impressed with 
the program’s success.

“They not only help us in 

making food affordable, but 
they really help us in the side 
mission of ours, which is the 
promotion of sustainability,” 
he said. “Their practices are 
all organic and the fact that 
our partnership gives us a 
really convenient source of 
high-quality organic goods is 

invaluable to us.”

Student Food Co. — which 

doesn’t process any produce, 
and only sells whole, uncut 
fruits and vegetables — began 
partnering with Campus Farm 
last year, and it now sells their 
produce twice a week in Mason 
Hall.

“It’s felt like a growing 

movement 
since 
I’ve 
been 

with them, and the academic 
side of food is starting to grow 
here at U of M,” he said. “It’s 
a relationship we want to keep 
up.”

It is quite remarkable, too, 

to consider how much work 
goes into maintaining and 
running a successful farm, 
especially as students with 
classes, 
extracurriculars 

and other jobs. The fact that 
they’ve achieved this level 
of self-sustaining success in 
such a short period of time 
is downright impressive. But 

Sharp says it never feels like a 
job to her.

“It’s my favorite part of 

every week,” she said. “I just 
think it’s important to get out 
in nature, so I love going out to 
the farm — and I definitely got 
a community out of it.

***

The 
students 
who 

volunteered to help weeding 
are crouched on their knees in 
the main plot, plucking leaves 
that look — to the untrained eye 
— nearly indistinguishable from 
the crops to harvest. It’s hot out, 
but they’re having fun, and they 
look committed.

So 
does 
everyone 
here. 

The harvesting group listens 
intently and seriously to the 
instructions about cleanliness 
before 
steadfastly 
cleaning 

their hands and heading over to 
the hoop house. A volunteer — 
presumably a regular — pulls out 
a couple of poster mock-ups to 
help advertise the Campus Farm 
around campus.

Mackey tells me, “I know that 

when I go to the farm I feel an 
emotion that is similar to things 
that people would traditionally 
call art.” It sounds a bit cheesy, 
but it makes sense in context. 
It’s an experiment that’s paid 
off, a model of DIY hard work by 
students, for students. You could 
definitely call it art.

FOOD

COURTESY OF THE CAMPUS FARM

Food: It comes from the 
ground at Campus Farm

How often do you wonder where your food is coming from? The 
ground? Sometimes. But only if it’s from the Campus Farm

NABEEL CHOLLAMPAT

Senior Arts Editor

Deftly 

manicured 

rows of crops, 
a full, working 
hoop house, an 
abundance of 
hoses watering 

plants

A volunteer 
pulls out a 

couple of poster 

mock-ups to 
help advertise 
the Campus 
Farm around 

campus

But no matter 

what your opinion 

is on this type 
of sound, there 
is no denying 
the passion and 
resourcefulness 

behind these 
underground 
explorations of 

artistic expression

STEPS TO DIY

1.CHECKERED VANS
2. SOUNDCLOUD RAP

3. SKATEBOARDS, BUT ONLY 

WHEN SAD

4. CUTS OWN HAIR WITH CHILD 

SCISSORS

5. SOUNDCLOUD
6. DEATH GRIPS

E-mail arts@michigandaily.com for more helpful tips, tricks and 

lists

