And who’s going to hold you like me?
And who’s going to love you, if not me?
I laughed in your face and said,
“You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith”
This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel
We’re modern idiots
Who’s going to hold you like me?
Nobody.
No f______ body. Nobody.
Are you really telling me that Taylor Swift is going to make poetry accessible to “the masses” with her new album, “Tortured Poets”? Her work may be a tad pedestrian for my sweet little old lady taste, but bless her heart for trying. People are asking who Dylan Thomas is, and Patti Smith has gotten more attention than she has in years.
Like opera, ballet, and abstract art, poetry is considered highbrow, and not for everyday folk. Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, Cole Porter, Bobby Dylan … those guys are lyricists, not poets. Now Taylor is shaking the dust off, and alerting the troops to “words.”
April is Poetry Month, and just like Black History Month, Women’s History Month, and Native American History Month, it celebrates a profession that is underplayed, underpaid, and underappreciated. I don’t know of any profession that pays less than that of being a poet.
What’s the difference between a large pizza and a poet? A pizza can feed a family of four.
Have you ever met a poet who has supported themselves, let alone a family, on just their poetry alone? I’m talking about poets who send out their works to publications and get a check that is enough to live on.
I’m not talking about teachers who are poets on the side, lyricists who set poems to music, or haiku poets who recite and pass the hat in Washington Square Park.
An old silent pond …
A frog jumps into the pond
Splash! Silence again
Basho’s haiku has been published a gazillion times, and I’m pretty sure he never got a dime in residuals.
Most literary magazines pay less than $50 a poem, and sometimes a free subscription as a bonus. Last I looked, Poetry Magazine paid a whopping $10 a line, with a minimum payment of $300. They can afford to be that generous because they have an endowment. Getting published in a reputable magazine is more difficult than getting into Harvard. According to Duotrope’s Digest, Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry accepts 3.36 percent of all submissions. Harvard accepts 4.6 percent.
William Carlos Williams’ side hustle was as a pediatrician; my buddy Robert Pinsky had to teach at Wellesley and UCLA to support his family. Even as poet laureate, he only made $35,000, and there is only one U.S. poet laureate in the country. Today, the poet laureate gets $50,000, which is a little less than an Uber driver gets, yet it is more than an adjunct professor might earn.
Billy Collins, who has been called “the most popular poet in America” by Bruce Weber, had to give master classes and stuff like that to put the bacon on the table.
Today, Andrea Gorman is worth about $4 million. That is tip money for Taylor Swift. But that income comes from performances and ancillary activities. “The Hill We Climb” is still there, and many of us are still climbing it.
I don’t know of any poet who is paid for just being a poet, do you?
Unfortunately, there are statistics to back me up. A survey from the financial services company Bankrate — based on data from the 2016 U.S. Census Bureau “American Community Survey” obtained through the IPUMS-USA, University of Minnesota research program — researchers found that performing arts degrees (I was a theater major) came out near the bottom of the list, in fourth to last place. Fine art is the least valuable major in college, according to a survey of 162 degrees in the U.S. The unemployment rate for graduates is a staggering 9.1 percent, while those who do get jobs face a lower annual income.
Now, they can win contests and awards, that is true. The prizes are from $50 to $500. Often, however, there is an entrance fee, which tends to offset multiple submissions. My pumpkin, Afaa Weaver, a Renaissance House alumnus, won the Kingsley award for $100,000, which is a princely sum for which I take full credit. Sadly, one cannot win it every year.
How can you judge a poem, or any piece of art?
In full disclosure, I run Renaissance House, a retreat for writers on social issues and writers of color, many of whom are poets.
Our USP (unique selling proposition) is that we seek writers who are so busy earning a living that they are just too tired to write, as well as writers who create outside the mainstream of conventional literature.
Examples would be Afaa Weaver, who worked in a factory before spending time with us, or Mary Wheeler, who worked as a maid in a hotel. Then we have the rock star spoken-word writer Toni Bee, and the elegant Danielle Le Gros George, who was Boston’s poet laureate. All of them work on the same level of excellence. Not one of them is writing for their Ph.D. or to get published, or to have a film made from it. They write from within … take it or leave it.
These writers, and many, many more have told me how much they appreciated Renaissance House, because we could see the beauty of the work from their eyes. Since we are a mostly Black, female organization, it was natural for the panelists to see nuance and flavor from a non majority viewpoint, whereas other panels on other retreats regarded their works as “interesting but not very well-written.”
I wonder how many other writers of color and or social justice have faced this situation?
People bring their baggage with them when criticizing art. Each of us sees something different — where some of us see nothing at all, some of us see genius.
Loïs Mailou Jones, the painter who lived on the Island, once had to switch paintings with a white male painter in order to test the instructor, who had never said anything positive about her work. He glowed over it when he thought that it was the work of the white male. Such is the way of the world. Such is the reason there are not more professional, wealthy, museum-worthy, published women artists, activist artists, and artists of color.
As a big-mouth, Black, literary woman, I can look at a piece of work and see the beauty, whereas someone from a different cultural background might not.
Seeing something from the point of view of the creator is essential. Seeing the beauty in art that pulls away from the conventional to make a point is crucial. True art changes you. You are different after having seen it or read it. Creating that work, taking the chance that it might never sell, never be seen, never be understood by others, is what art is all about.
Most writers went to college. I’m sure that when their parents took on extra jobs so that they could pay the tuition, they had great hopes for the future of their dumpling darlings. Their kids would become professionals in a field that required a post–high school education.
Can you imagine when the kid says to them, “I want to major in literature. I want to be a poet”?
When it happened to me, it was like seeing an open window with dollar bills flying out. Not that I was so churlish as to let my feelings be known. “As long as you’re happy, dear. That’s all that counts.” There went any chance of my kids supporting me when I got older. The bittersweet dream of going to a classy retirement home was squashed, and replaced with a “Get me out of here” institution. I knew this because my mother, Helene Johnson, was a poet. A really good one. One of the outstanding poets of the Harlem Renaissance. The woman never made a dime on her creative writing; neither did my aunt, Dorothy West, who wrote for the Gazette. In order to survive, she had to work as a cashier at Harborside in Edgartown, until her writing was noticed by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis while she was at Doubleday. Then she was a big hit with her novel “The Wedding.” She was already 85, childless, and in no shape to go clubbing into the wee hours of the night on a Hemingway-type celebration. So, is Taylor Swift really going to change the outcome of the profession?
And who’s going to hold you like me?
And who’s going to love you, if not me?
I laughed in your face and said,
“You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith”
This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel
We’re modern idiots
Who’s going to hold you like me?
Nobody.
No f______ body. Nobody.
Taylor is right. We must keep holding onto poetry. We must keep loving poetry. If not us, then who? No f______ body. Nobody.
Lovely Abigail, just lovely. As the musician Vance Gilbert has often said, “There’s hundreds of dollars a year to be made in folk music.” And yet, they play on, write on, read on.
Abigale, you are so much more than a big mouth, Black, literary woman. You are a rock. You are a warrior!
Your voice, your song, your words, your life and your legacy is a dance and poem to the world!
“A poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company”
– W. Wordsworth
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