Poets & paid work

Most poets’ lives take shape in tension between devotion to their art & the need to make a living, and every poet must find his/her own way to juggle these things or weave them together. Some poets choose day jobs that are undemanding, or at least demanding talents & skills very different from those they apply to making poetry, “saving” themselves for a separate life as a poet. Regan Good’s essay in the current New York Observer, “Arbitragedy: A Hedge-Fund Poet’s Bittersweet Ballad,” is a poignant exploration of the dimensions of this choice, ending in a declaration that “poets have the best job” and backing up this faith with W.B. Yeats’ poem, “Adam’s Curse”:

…to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.

Other poets devote themselves to making a living as a poet -- teaching, touring, selling books, opening poetry cafes, making poetry films, and always trying to make poetry pay. For this path, we can recommend no better guide than Gary Mex Glazner’s How To Make a Living as a Poet (Soft Skull, 2005 -- ). It’s chock-full of goodies from the practical to the sublime, wryly comic & fully committed to the art, including outlines of poetry projects, interviews with poets & poetry impresarios, and nuts & bolts chapters on how to give readings, plan a tour, get published... all firmly based on Glazner’s years of experience creating a career for himself as a poet.

Related resources:
Our article on Poets’ Work
“The Barbaric Yawp,” How to give a good reading of your poems, adapted from Glazner’s book