What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?
The lack of apparatus. Volunteer culture lends itself to the hobbyist. Limited structures of support, paid opportunity, and the non-existence of a sustainable career as a poet forces the serious writer to split their attention in order to survive. By default, a poet has at least two careers; if lucky, they can feed into each other and support each other, but the luxury of being permitted, through the systems of self-reliant capitalism, to prioritize poetry for more than short periods of time is a fantasy. I listen to friends working in other creative fields and they have unions that insist on certain, realistic payment rates, overtime compensation, mental health time off, and so on. The reality is that were one to enforce certain rates onto the poetry community, a lot of the most interesting projects wouldn’t be able to function. That said, though, valorizing poetry as relevant social discourse and not normalizing free labour would be a huge step forward.
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