Alison Croggon wrote:
>Money is a kind of poetry, said - was it Wallace Stevens? Anyway, a piece
>in The Guardian today which claims, among other things, "Poets would surely
>forsake any prize money for the sake of just one timelessly memorable poem."
>If it wasn't a false choice (because it is, in terms that are rather suss) I
>would say, it depends how broke said poet is...
>
>Not only that, but poets need "translators". Anyway, for the curious...
>
>http://books.guardian.co.uk/forwardprize2005/story/0,16299,1585250,00.html
>
>
Couldn't get thru the Guardian piece. In the words of Dr. Seuss,
"You've got to be a speedy reader 'cause there's so so much to read!"
Forsake? Let's say money is an attraction but I don't think it's why
people enter contests (here we go again). The idea of a writer having
expectations of being a can't-lose hotshot indicates he or she is
sleeping with a jury member or is so overwhelmingly arrogant that a
statue must be erected at once, made of gold-painted lead--for such
arrogance is memorable.
I am plenty broke and have been for four years. Who works a full-time
underpaying job while teaching in two different places unless they are
strapped? I went bankrupt in January. Credit, wazzat? I don't fit the
model of the settled middle-aged man since I'm (1) nuts and (2) a
financial mirror of some of Francis Bacon's more entertaining
paintings. Even so, when I read via CRWOPPS the Poetry Foundation
competition for a first book by a writer over 50, publication and
promotion are what I saw first, not the $10,000 that comes with the
award. You're damn right it would be nice to have, but the impetus to
finish the manuscript was not money, it was my brother-in-law's suicide.
I'd make a lousy whore. I'd fall in love with my customers. When more
contests come around I'll even write *them* checks.
Does anyone know of poets who've gotten *rich* off their work. Okay,
C.D. Wright got one of those MacArthur grants last year, but she didn't
apply for it. W.S. Merwin has won $100K at a pop, but he didn't apply
for it either. In both cases, they are off the tax hook. Berryman
called a book "Love & Fame" and I suppose he had too much of one and the
wrong kind of the other, but money didn't figure in there.
Anyway, it's another day of roaring hostility here so back I go to
grapple....
Ken
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