the life in poetry
here i am in my own no-professional life in poetry. i was just watching a video interview of a poet on youtube where the poety described his 'career in poetry'. my hackles started to hackle. i mean can we make a living in poetry? like pay the mortgage kind of living? i'm not talking about the byproducts of poetry such as having a teaching job in academia, or as an editor in a publishing house. i'm talking about earning moolah from poetry. i remember a sitcom in the early '90s starring judd hirsch. hirsch's character returns to poetry after many years. he is visited by his old mentor, a well-known poet who has been on the skids for years without writing a line for a very long time. later, this mentor poet gets an advance for about 10 grand from his publisher for his new book of poetry. poems, we later learn, were stolen from hirsch. at the time, when i was just learning to become a poet, being paid thousands of dollars for your book of poetry was pretty rad. & maybe there are a few poets among us that do get those fat publishing contracts. who can earn a living by their pen. but soon, not long after this sitcom aired, i knew that poetry is made for the love of the art. for the love of life. that there is no, at least for me, career in poetry. rather, it is a life made in poetry. for which there is no fame or renumeration. there is only, & always, the love of making poetry. reading poetry. even at my advancing age, i can think of no higher calling in this crazy life.
