February 28, 2017 | Online

Grindr now has a "poet in residence"

What's the one thing missing from Grindr, the popular hook-up app for gay men? If you said poetry, then you're in luck; the app has hired Max Wallis as its very first "poet in residence."

And Wallis is no mere limerick writer (though we do love a good limerick). He's a Polari Prize-shortlisted poet who has been called the "future of poetry." He was also once Harper's Bazaar's roaming poet in residence, writing about modelling and fashion, as well as love, intimacy and modern interpretations of sexuality.

What will he be creating for Grindr?

He explained: "The poems play on the essential themes of the app -- relationships, our increasingly unsympathetic world and quite a lot of sex (topics that have been the subject of my last two books -- Modern Love and Everything Everything). Each video threads into the next, telling a larger story about what is to be gay now (although I thought it best not to limit myself to what it means to be gay and on Grindr now -- as that would mean a lot of requests to “send more pics” and any number of unsolicited anatomical images)."