I'm glad to see Steven's post about the Eleventh Muse.
As for TJ's notes on poetry and money, well, I'm not sure I agree, really. The market bears what the market bears, and it's worth noticing what the market offers for our art in realistic terms. You can make money by bringing poetry to other media if you figure out the problems of distribution and advertisement. But in terms of living one's life, I think it's a good idea to take responsibility from the start for earning a living. I say this as someone who was very, very slow to do so, and ruined a marriage in the process. Get a job. Pay your bills. It won't kill you. Dana Gioia used to work sixty or seventy hour weeks in business, but hold two or more hours per night four nights a weeek for his writing, and some portion of his weekend, and he produced more than any of us.
I'm always happy to get a check for a poem, true, but I've made much more money as a film writer and book editor (not to mention manual laborer and college teacher) than I ever expect to make from poetry.
There's something to be said to devoting yourself to an art that can't make you rich, isn't there? So you've got to really love the art and pursue it for the sake of perfection in the work rather than for riches.
That aside, anything we can do to bring poetry to a wide, discerning readership is fine by me.
[This message has been edited by David Mason (edited September 03, 2004).]
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