JOHN MCCULLOUGH
‘Poetry values the unknown, the real, the potential, and the silent – everything, that is, which has no value’ wrote Paul Hoover in the March/April 2005 issue of American Poetry Review. It may be an emotional essential for many, even sacred, but it has never been the sort of writing that leads to a steady income, let alone warm rooms and paid bills. A large proportion of those drawn to write poetry end up juggling a number of temporary, parttime jobs which are poorly paid. I spent several years in my twenties teaching during the daytime and working in bars at night. I used my days off for catching up on sleep rather than writing. I think it’s important to recognize that when jobs are poetry-related, the usual rules still apply. Just as we wouldn’t expect someone who pulls pints to work for nothing, it’s important not to ask it of writers for whom giving feedback on other people’s poems, running workshops or delivering a talk on getting published are not parts of a hobby. They deserve to be paid fairly for their time.
MARI ELLIS DUNNING
Economic stress is a reality for the vast majority of those trying to earn a living from their creative pursuits. Hardly surprising, under the rule of a UK government who massively devalue the arts and seem to have a preoccupation with mathematics that borders on unhealthy. The problem is compounded for writers and seems worse again for poets — a quick survey of my own poetry circles and it’s apparent how rife the issue is. Every poet I know has been asked to work for free at some point, whether that’s reading at a festival or other ticketed event or running a workshop. Every now and then, there may be good reason to work ‘pro bono,’ – if the event is free and unfunded, or if the primary aim is to promote a new book, for example – but it seems as though the problem arises where others feel entitled to profit from poets without offering any
renumeration. It’s as though the art form is valued enough to be desired, hosted and consumed, but not enough to be fairly paid.
Of course, part of the issue comes down to the chronic underfunding of the arts industries – while Wales is lucky to have organisations that champion and support creative writing, there is only so much that can be done with limited resources. What has become apparent in recent years, thanks to the Covid pandemic, is the feasibility of flexible working hours, the shorter working week and of universal basic income, which
would allow poets, writers, and other creators to continue working on ‘passion projects’ while earning a living wage. While we wait for those things to become a reality, take a look at Pay for Poets, a free resource to help poets and writers ask for a fair fee for their work.
JENNY MITCHELL
The poetry world hates poor poets. Discuss if you’ve ever been told your poem has been accepted for publication (hurrah!) but there’s no fee (how do I afford the time to write more poems and pay the rent?). Does your publisher receive the majority share of any, often-paltry, royalties but refuse to buy three bottles of wine for a launch party? Discuss further if you’ve been asked to pay £10.00 to go to a poetry reading, or £14 to enter a poetry competition. The latter is not mandatory but without a win or two, a poet with a
so-so publisher may go unnoticed. In other words, competitions are a way up if you’re ambitious.*
Well, I hear an imaginary reader say, get a better publisher. Good idea, but have you noticed the field is crowded with Very Young poets who get to be published by Very Big publishers with their first joined-up collection?
I wonder how many of these lucky poets have an academic background, or parents who are poets/writers? In other words, is the Old Boys’ Network alive and kicking in the poetry world? What does this mean in terms of poetic originality? Why would you write poetry that challenges the status quo if it’s working for you?
Following on, do we carry inherited, internalised ideas around money? If your family was exploited by the rich does this fill you with fear about poverty in the future? Could this lead you to do the Sensible Thing and get a Proper Job which, as many of us know, means there’s very little time/headspace for writing anything at all, much less for processing/learning/digging deep until you reach your power as a poet.
It sounds gloomy. I can offer ideas, but you’ll have to pay me first.
Coda: After finishing the above Poetry Wales were kind enough to offer me some extra money to set out my ideas so here goes: Could every poetry competition provide ten free submissions, with no proof needed? I know some do already but if it was standard would it be an incentive for people on limited budgets to seek out competitions they might have dismissed as too expensive?
Zoom events are often free but could live events offer a number of free places for all open miccers and a few audience members? Also, if events ended earlier more people might be prepared to walk to and from the venue, therefore saving on transportation costs. This only seems petty if you’re earning a fairly decent wage.
The bigger publishers could actively scout for new poets in places like libraries by offering regular workshops. Also, every publisher worth its salt could offer at least one paid mentorship a year to a promising poet who identifies as working class. The poet would not have to edit or judge but just write and be given the enormous confidence boost of regular feedback.
Finally, might there be deep, internal, emotional work on self-worth and value that has to be done by poets in order to shift blocks around money?
* Note from Poetry Wales: It is worth knowing that for Wales Poetry Award and other competitions run by Poetry Wales, entries are free for UK residents of low-income backgrounds, from households earning £16,000 or less per year. There is no need to declare or prove your income threshold
SADIA PINEDA HAMEED
I think the compounding of money and time is a constant stress that surrounds any act of writing; whether it’s self-funded, written in ‘spare time’, with the support of a grant, or funded directly by publishing houses or sales. I wonder how much the current economic system, where time is dependent on money, shapes language – what gets written and especially what gets published. Is there always an act of translation (internal or external) that modifies what or how something is written by personal financial circumstances and capitalist interests? Is the way something is written distorted by the thought of its financial exchangeability?
The goal always seems to be some kind of release from these stresses by gaining more cultural capital, success, and notability – that or, preferably, by completely alleviating capitalist economic conditions and their dictation of creativity and time.
CALEB NICHOLS
The predawn darkness was heavy, like cough syrup. No sound of birdsong yet beyond the windows, which reflected the lights of the house rather than admitting the cold blue light that hadn’t yet cracked the horizon. The only sounds were the shuffling of newspapers and the acoustic twang and thwap of the rubber bands they tied around the heft of the Sunday morning edition. Grandma had set out a little place for me to work; a
pile of rubber bands and a stack of newspapers waiting to be folded into the tubes that we would soon hurl from the windows of the truck. I watched for a moment as Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, and my brother skillfully folded and rolled the papers, fastening them with the bands in one swift motion of the wrist before tossing them into the quickly-filling cardboard boxes that littered the living room floor.
I was raised by a single mother who worked more than one job to raise my brother and I and, as she’d say “keep a roof over our heads.” Of course, this experience, to a large degree, shaped my worldview in a particular way. Because of watching her struggle to put food on the table, I’ve grown up into the type of person who thinks it’s important for everyone to have a living wage, good benefits, and other social benefits, regardless of class, race, gender, status, education, etc. My experience in childhood directly relates to my political identity as an adult and this necessarily informs my poetics. But what does it mean to be a working-class poet in the 21st century? And more specifically, what does it mean to a so-called “academic” poet from a working-class background? I suppose this is a way of asking: who is poetry for?
MATTHEW HAIGH
Why did it have to be poetry? Of all the things I could fall in love with and dedicate huge swathes of my time to, why did it have to be an industry so bereft of financial gain? This may sound cynical, but it is a thought that has crossed my mind on more than one occasion. In no other line of work would you be asked to contribute your skills, knowledge and time for free, and yet within poetry circles it happens all too often. This
becomes a particularly difficult life for certain minorities. For most of my adult life I have been a carer for my mother, who is disabled – a role I have fulfilled with great love and pride, but one which has been unpaid. Those in my position are faced with a difficult and cruel decision: either give up work to care for our loved ones, tumbling into poverty in the process, or strive to continue working while balancing those caring
responsibilities, often leading to a build up of stress and a breakdown in our own physical and mental health. According to Carersuk.org unpaid carers contribute a staggering £445 million to the economy every day, and yet we are some of the most invisible people in society. Carer’s Allowance is the main carer’s benefit but is a mere £76.75 per week. It is the lowest benefit of its kind and, truly, a mark of shame for this
country. In what fantasy land can anyone survive on £307 per month in 2023? To further complicate matters I was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease several months ago. Caught somewhere between too ill to currently work yet not ill enough to qualify for disability benefit, I find myself falling once again between society’s cracks.
RHIAN EDWARDS
I am a working single parent and work three jobs, as a poetry editor, compliance officer and freelance poet; all of which I do on a self-employed basis. Hence, no holiday pay and no sick pay. I get paid for the hours I work.
I am also a single parent and have been for the past eight years. My daughter is now nine. For 46 weeks of the year, we are a “republic of two” with the addition of a dog, as a surrogate sibling. For six weeks of the year, my daughter spends time with her father, who lives abroad.
My editorial role and the office work are my subsistence. They are the jobs that pay my self-assessment tax bill at the tail-end of Christmas, the mortgage, the utility bills, the insurance, the car, school dinners, After School Club, gymnastics classes, swimming lessons, streetdance classes, Netflix.
The freelance poetry is the “gravy” that covers birthdays, Christmas, the extras, the unexpected trip to the vets, the inexplicably high-water bill post-Covid. It would pay for holidays too, but in eight years, I regret to confess I have never paid for us go on holiday.
The trouble with the freelance work, especially ad hoc poetry readings and workshops, is they form part of the gig economy. You never know when they’re going to come, when they’re going to stop and you can rarely say no. In twenty years of doing this work, poetry readings pay as much today as they did then. Overnight work or extensive travel is a near impossibility for me due to lack of reliable childcare (and dog care). Babysitters now command a minimum of £9 per hour, overnight care for the dog is £25. Consequently, an evening poetry reading, even just a simple night out, just often isn’t worth the money or the mental anguish. (I even had to bring my daughter on a second date!)
In June 2022, my electricity and gas payments were £94 per month. As of 22 Aug 2022, they are now £153 per month for the two of us in a 2-bedroom mid terrace, despite the fact we use the same bath every morning and I wear a Sherpa poncho when I work from home and refuse to put the heating on until the evening. It was £40 per month when I moved in 2017. My 2-year fixed rate mortgage of 2.14% expires in April 2024. Interest rates were put up to 4.5% only last week. My mortgage will absolutely cripple me.
Luckily, I am in receipt of child maintenance from my daughter’s father. This has remained the same since my child’s father and I separated in 2015. This now barely covers three weeks’ worth of groceries, despite my frugality and batch-cooking. However, I am reluctant to ask him for an increase.
HLR
When the psychiatrist asks me what
my earliest memory of food is, I tell her
it is 1999 & we are following the train tracks outside of Pruszków
in a July monsoon. My bamboo skewer legs are splintering
from the exhaustion of having walked for miles in extreme heat
& my vision is blurring tipsily, serving to remind me of all that
my six-year-old body is lacking, as if I wasn’t already alert enough
to the visceral pain-twist of wanting/needing something/anything
to fill my empty belly. I am so desperately hungry, I am considering eating
my own slim arm. I lick my mosquito-bitten flesh as a taste test, experiment
with making tiny teeth-mark indents in red but opt instead for stealing
dehydrated leaves off trees & shoving them into my dry mouth, remembering that
Polish witches believed oak leaves had the power & strength to raise the dead.
But the old folklore also dictates that harming trees brings bad luck. I fall
behind after stopping to catch tepid rainwater in my cupped hands;
I slurp the pond down, feral with greed, but I am not fast enough.
I am caught by my ciocia & told sternly, Nie dozwolony.
A swift slap lands on my sunburnt face. Not allowed. I tell the shrink that frankly
I’ve been famished ever since that day & when this memory is done escaping
my lips, my stomach howls as supporting evidence.