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From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 12:04 AM
Subject: Re: Holy Thursday
> Erminia suggested:
>
> >Can we send instead - for their fair sustainment - monthly provisions of
> >10 kg potatoes
> >5 kilos rise
> >9 kilos pasta (different made)
> >20 cans of tomatoes
> >350 grams sugar
> >2 boxes of Neapolitan coffee
>
> For those of us living off our writing, this would be handy. Some fresh
> vegetables might be welcome.
>
> Also: a bottle of Grange Hermitage and a box of cigarettes. Also, two
> reams of paper, shoes for children, and money for a haircut and busfares.
> Wouldn't mind childcare fees. And what about a book allowance? Oh
> damn, can't avoid the filthy lucre.
>
> >But
> >that you speak about copyrights in terms of cheques yearly paid by
> >publishers
> >and yearly received by authors as a (sometimes poor and insufficient)
> >compensation for their contribution to the development of the history of
> >poetic forms, is something incomprehensible.
> >It is just businness.
> >The discourse therefore implies the contamination of art by the
publishing
> >market with the consequent corruption and
> >deterioration of just those forms you (the poets) wished to renew: all
this
> >because the major concern is not art but its retribution.
> >I feel that, if this is the concern, then poets would seek employment
(any
> >imployment) ,
> >and that they should be prepared to do any job to
> >pay for their life expenses, like lorry drivers do, street cleaners and
so
> >on....
>
> The retribution of poetry: "I suffered for my art. Now it's your turn..."
>
> I don't know if you've been in the position of _needing_ those (rather
> minimal) cheques. If other people are going to make money out of
> something I make, I want a cut of it. Especially if I have already
> subsidised it by (in my case) deciding that rather than spending my life
> building a career, I will instead write poems. Consequently, I don't own
> a car, or a house, or anything much except quite an interesting
> collection of books and cds and some furniture my mother gave me. I'm
> not complaining - nobody forced me to make that choice and most of the
> time I manage to survive - but the assumption that it's therefore corrupt
> or greedy to wonder how to make a living is somewhat outrageous.
>
> People who _use_ writing tend to make more money from it than those who
> make it. I've seldom made as much money from a play as those who acted
> in it; nor do I have the luxury of a steady income, like those who might
> teach it. (See above about complaining). This only bothers me when I
> strike those who make quite a nice living out of the arts (bureaucrats
> &c) cocking an eyebrow in surprise at the idea that a _writer_ should
> perhaps be paid in the same way as say a marketing expert.
>
> I believe, profoundly, that poetry should be free, the above
> notwithstanding. But the insistence on that should perhaps be balanced
> with the real subsidising of that freedom that artists tend to routinely
> make in order to produce their work at all - and with a respect for that.
> I too have problems with the kinds of ridiculous copyright excesses
> practised by _publishers_ (writers tend to be sensible about these
> things). But I'm all for protecting the rights of writers; they're hard
> fought for and easily lost. Like most rights.
>
> Best
>
> Alison
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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