Poetry for the stars: Calgary's TikTok poet Josie Balka has some very famous fans
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Jennifer Aniston and Drew Barrymore recently paid homage to their pet dogs on Instagram.
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The two celebs have often been public in their fondness for their canine family members, so the playful tributes are not unexpected. What was unexpected, however, was that both used the as-yet-unpublished poem by Calgarian Josie Balka as the soundtrack for their Instagram reels. Balka wrote the poem as an ode to Ronin, her Bernese mountain dog, and made a video performing it, which she posted on social media. It is an earnest and affectionate piece that has her listing the various ways a pet dog makes its presence known in a household and its owner's life.
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Balka began posting her poetry on TikTok and Instagram in 2023, hunkering down in a dark soundproof closet to make the recordings before releasing them to social media and letting the algorhythms do their mysterious work. So far, her work has attracted 851,700 followers on TikTok and 704,000 on Instagram. A reel of her performing I Can't Remember Anyone at a Public Pool, which underlines the notion that 'you will be remembered for the way that you are, not the way that you look,' has been viewed more than 12 million times. Being a viral sensation led to interest from a literary agent and then a book deal with Simon Element, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Her debut collection, I Hope You Remember: Poems on Loving, Longing and Living, was released this week.
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Barrymore used another one of Balka's poems – this one about self-acceptance – for another Instagram reel and sent the poet a message praising her 'way with words.' Paris Hilton used one of her poems to back an Instagram tribute to her husband, Carter Reum, on his birthday.
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Love is Blind star Taylor Hastings used some of Balka's love poetry in an Instagram post. Paralympic swimming champ Jessica Long posted a video on TikTok set to Balka reading I Can't Remember Anyone at a Public Pool.
'I just couldn't believe it,' says Balka in an interview with Postmedia. 'When things like that happen, I'm blown away because it's always people I've admired for such a long time. It's just crazy how social media works, how these things can find people without me having to ask them to listen.'
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Of course, it's not just famous people who have discovered Balka's work. The poems in I Hope You Remember have a universality that appeals to those who may otherwise avoid poetry. During her recent sold-out appearance for Wordfest, Balka was approached by several women who were moved by poems about her mother and the difficulties of being a long-distance daughter. (Balka lives in Calgary and her mother is in Toronto.)
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Some Calgarians will already be familiar with Balka's voice. She co-hosts the weekday radio show Mornings with Gregg and Josie on Country 105 from 6 to 10 a.m. and hosts the poetry-based podcast The Breakdown with Josie Balka, which describes her as being 'known for posting really sad poetry from inside of a dark closet.'
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