Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

http://dallas.craigslist.org/mdf/wet/951023570.html

This is an ad I stumbled across on craigslist today

I just had to answer it.

I asked the poster what kind of success he had been having from his ad. He responded and said it was nil. I expected as much. Poetry is an impossible product to sell.

I responded this way:

I suspected that this would be your response. The simple fact is that poetry doesn't sell. Believe me I've tried. I've published seven books of poetry to the great excitement of my friends and family.

I resigned myself years ago to the fact that almost no living poets make a living at it and the dead ones don't care. Don't expect your rewards in this lifetime.

It's much easier to sell a poet than it is to sell poetry.

It's much easier to sell a poet than it is to sell poetry

Have you thought about a TV infomercial.


Retitle one of your books to "Short Cut To Internet Millions"

Do you know anyone with a swimming pool and a mansion, with a couple of Rolls Royces in the driveway that would let you shoot it there?


"Buy the truth and sell it not"

Still hoping to buy a book Clay
sorry I have not done it yet

Sculptors and poets are the most chronically unemployed citizens . . .


--UU

for the life of me I cannot get my head around the meaning of the words
"unemployed poet"

it seems like an apparent contradiction.

To be a poet is to be employed

I suppose I am being stupid Professor

But not fatuous

or sarcastic

I remember a phrase you used once "my accidental successes"

To be a poet is to be employed 24 seven I think

your whole life is your job
It is in your blood
your heart is pumping poetry with every beat
whether else you are doing at the time.



I picked up a book called Proust Was A NeuroSceintist
I liked the the quote on the first page

Chapter 1

Walt Whitman

The Substance of Feeling

The poet writes the history of his own body.

The poet writes the history of his own body.
Henry David Thoreau

Not shitting you about buying the book Clay, I wish I could get all seven.

Jews supposed to be so smart about money. I fell guilty I can not give you more support. I am not trying to encourage or discourage you. I know it makes no difference. You will be a poet till you die. I suppose what I am trying to say is poets must be self employed.. And I think the best that could happen for any writer is an accidental success.

Meanhile I watched that commercial "Shortcut to Internet Millions" and I am praying that I don't have take any of those calls. It was a horrible thing to watch well, the blondes were pretty and had good tans but other than that oi oi. I could not take anybodies money that called. I don't know how I have lasted at this job four years. They must like my sense of humor I suppose.

Sorry to keep rambling trying to give you as much info as I can. But most of all Clay I got that SS retirement check coming in every month easy for me to be complacent.

I am not buying cigarettes anymore, that should help free up some bucks. I am a little bit torn about whether to buy that book about Short Cuts to Internet Millions or your Cool Calm Collected book. I figure if I get the get rich quick book I could afford to hire you as my full time poet laureate.

sorry for the ramble

jt
et al.

What the hell happened to my vocabulary, I suppose I am being fatuous but the word I should have used is facetious

mnaz hates it when anyone says

keep on keeping on
but what else is there to say?

best wishes for success Clay.



Writing is a necessity
Whatever work you do
I don't have to worry about you being a martyr to your art
Is that what Sylvia Plath was?
Nobody ever was as ambitious a poet as her

I lost my ambition on litkicks.
I used to write dust cover blurbs for myself and NY TImes book reviews in my head.

I owe Livi Asher much gratitude for curing me of that delusion.

So many books clay
Half Priced Books sells them by the yard to interior decorators.

Well the good news is I am
I am done pontificating for the day.
thanks mingo

poets are gamblers... betting on the written word to get them by.

truck, Bertie, cec

you guys understand me too well.

what is necessary to be a poet? Vows of poverty.