[New-Poetry] Recommending Poetry Presses?

[Anny Ballardini]

I and I
can understand both positions. I used to advocate for the one that a life 
(job) is complementary to poetry. In Bob's case his visual art requires 
painting as well which builds up to three simultaneous lives. As a matter of 
fact I have stopped painting, the same dirt colors require does not get 
along with teaching and going to meetings and dealing with documents and so 
forth. There is also Tad who draws (paints?), how can you deal with it all? 
Would you rather opt for a life dedicated to art only?


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <jfq at myuw.net>
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views" 
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2008 2:11 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Recommending Poetry Presses?


>
>
>
> On Sat, 19 Jan 2008, Bob Grumman wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> yep. the people who decide what counts don't count.
>>>
>>>
>> Unfortunately, they do count: for getting one's work into circulation and 
>> for getting money to one.  This latter is significant, unless you have 
>> rich parents who dote on you.  Without it, you have to work at a job you 
>> probably won't like that takes time away from your poetry.
>
> I reject that argument. What's so bad about having a day job? I like my 
> job fine and it has nothing to do with poetry, or really anything I 
> "enjoy" and I don't ever feel like I don't have time to write and submit 
> poetry. And i still find time to write and play music, make recordings of 
> things, take the occasional evening class, participate on a couple of 
> listservs, watch movies, read books, play video games, blog and have a 
> social life. Devoting the entirety of your life to a single pursuit is a 
> goofy way to live, in my opinion. You're going to have to have a day job 
> no matter what, unless you're one of those creepy types who call 
> themselves "Freelance writers" and write for Magazines.
>
> So no, the people who decide what counts don't count, because all they're 
> doing is stroking their own egos and setting up hierarchies of human 
> importance based on the lamest possible criteria: popularity.
>
> I didn't care for it in highschool, and now that I'm an adult I'm free to 
> walk away from that sort of sycophancy, narcissism, and shallowness. If 
> everyone else did the same rather than desparately trying to make money 
> from their work so that they can be a "Real" whatever it is they do, then 
> I think the world would be a much more pleasant place. And then recognize 
> that if you choose to work in a medium that doesn't have big financial 
> rewards for hardly anybody, reconcile yourself to the fact that the 
> rewards ain't coming. Nobody deserves to get paid for writing good poetry. 
> I personally have no interest in it what so ever. Having freed myself from 
> the dumb notion that one needs to avoid developing employable skills in 
> interesting fields of work in order to perfect ones art, I have born out 
> the experiment I played out in my own life and discovered that 1.) who you 
> work with is more important than what you work on 2.) there are jobs with 
> good people that pay a living wage to be had and 3.) it's amazingly easy 
> to leave it all in the office when you walk out the door at five o'clock.
>
> which is to say i have no sympathy for anyone who complains they have to 
> work for a living. I'd like to have a trust fund and Maya Angelou's book 
> contract, but that's not the cards I got played. So I have to work for a 
> living. I will have to work for a living until I have enough money 
> squirreled away to take care of myself until I die. And in the meantime I 
> have health care with company paid dental, and I don't hate what I do. How 
> did I manage this amazing feet? I have realistic expectations about the 
> differences between the work you do to get paid and the work you do for 
> love.
>
> So as a result I much prefer this way of living. It's more comfortable, 
> I'm happier, and I have a wider range of things to write about than I did 
> when I was broke bohemian post punk guitar player working crappy jobs for 
> minimum wage. I can still be a bohemian post punk guitar player with a job 
> I don't hate that pays me enough to live on comfortably, and I can write 
> poetry at the same time. The three different things have nothing at all to 
> do with one another.
>
> Or to put it a different way, thank god i don't have to write for a 
> living, because I'd get completely bored of it before a month was out.