The Starving Artist

I’ve been thinking a lot about the point professor Hummer made last class regarding how, though it is possible for a fiction or memoir writer to make a living solely by writing, the same feat is not an option for a poet. The more that I consider the topic, the more it becomes impossible for me to decide whether or not the fact that it is hard to make money from writing should sadden me. After all, one could look at the struggle writers face as positive, especially if considering it as an indication that language – and especially poetry -- is hard for the market to turn into a commodity.

I also think it’s important to consider that this financial struggle seems to be inherent within most art forms. Yes, it is possible for a fiction writer to have a career based solely on her stories, but is it likely? When I started freelancing at my town’s local paper one of the first things my editor told me was that most of the journalists around the office were English majors in college; they wanted to write books, but realized they couldn’t realistically spend 40-hours a week writing novels and still eat. Likewise, art majors rarely fall into a life that allow them to do nothing but paint, draw and sculpt. Like many writers, they need jobs on the side in order to be able to do both what they love and to survive. This has, for a long time, been the life of an artist, and it’s been widely accepted, however regrettably.

So, I thought I’d throw it out there for discussion what this all means. Do you guys think we live in a world that, in a sense, punishes those that are creative, and is this particularly true for poets? Is it hard to make a living from poetry because the craft has become under-appreciated in contemporary society?