Sherry Chandler

How To Make A Living as a Poet

Gary Mex Glazner, editor of Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry, curator of the Word Art series at the Governor’s Museum in Santa Fe, and director of Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, which reads poems to the patients, has written How to Make a Living as a Poet (Soft Skull, 2005). I picked this up from the online excerpt of the Introduction:

So you want to be immortal? Only through great writing can you hope to join the cannon [sic], have your words live on, and be added to the long history of poetry. The goal of this book is to help give you more time to work on your art and to integrate poetry more fully into your life.

It is a step-by-step break down of various strategies using the skills learned as a poet to make your living as a poet and a series of life lessons from working poets on how to integrate the world of commerce with the art form of poetry. Besides the traditional paths of teaching and working with publishers, this book will expose more innovative guerrilla techniques like business sponsorships, unusual poet-in-residencies, and using new media to build the poetry audience.

Glazer also has a blog, Make a Living as a Poet, that you might want to check out.

Meanwhile, the Stick Poet Superhero takes us on a small tour of the Library Hotel with rates starting at about $415/night. The Poets Garden there offers:

spectacular views of the Public Library and surrounding New York architecture. The wicker furniture lends comfort to the guest who wants to unwind in the sunshine with the masters of poetry.

Are those masters living or dead, I wonder. The dead guys probably work cheaper.

Possibly related posts:

The Eclectic Living Room

The Poet Laureate of mtvU

Poet Laureate Kooser Gets Pulitzer in Poetry

Million’s poet

Donald Hall Named Poet Laureate

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