Poets in poverty

I’m in my starving artist era. I dip in and out of poverty. But somehow, I survive through a jigsaw of odd jobs. Again and again, I choose creativity over career.  Again and again, I sacrifice for my craft. But to what end?

I write this with delicious bile in my throat. I write this with newly found knowledge. With a thought that seems so obvious that it has never, ever occurred to me. Creativity should not be responsible for financial stability.

Yet, I have been deep in this expectation. Just one more project. One more poem. Next time it will be different. Next time it will be better. This is a crazy amount of pressure to put upon myself.

This approach to creativity can only end in heartbreak.

Comfort kills creativity

I have always believed that comfort is the creativity killer. I have always felt that art is more important than pleasure. What if comfort is the fat that keeps us from feeling? Keeps us from the grit and gravel of life. How poetic. However, age has a way of testing the sincerity of belief. I could be joking but eternal youth is the way we save ourselves from truth.

What is my truth? Other than feeling too old for the philosophy of poets.

What is my truth? When my body decays from the organs outward.

Where do I feast? If my sensitive hunger is essential to create something meaningful.

Beware, inquiry comes at a cost. The cost is the health and clarity of mind. Those faithful that brush aside questions of soul and meaning – have so much more space within their lives.

I envy the innocence that has long left my heart. I see innocence radiant in the world beyond me. How poetic. I still possess my ignorant sanity but I am not smart enough to get out of my own way.

It is no wonder I feel like a failure even if my poetry is painfully alive. I fooled myself into thinking that suffering is necessary to work. At the end of the day, at the end of our time together, all I have is scribbles across a page.

What is my truth? I am addicted to the masochistic edge of poverty.

Many creatives, many writers, so many poets have lived this way of misery. I will name names and explore a history of their lives in another article. But let it be known, there are also many examples of writers that make it big or at least make a living.

Art and poetry have their own demands. It’s exceedingly simple and simply frustrating. Finances support creativity. But comfort stifles it. This is a balancing act of sensitive chaos and curating control. Bear with me, I am still learning how to learn better.

Big brain, rational thoughts

My tongue is tuned to poetics. I don’t know how to talk gold. Or solve problems. This is the role of the rational brain. It’s a curious thing. In so many ways, the craft of creativity is the antithesis of the rational. Both logic and poetics are required to be a functional creative in the world. This is a oscillating spectrum and it is very easy to get wrong. Very easy to be all one and no other. My poverty is proof of dysfunction, is it not?

I spend more time in the internal realms than I do out here, with you. In mythological terms, I am a wanderer in the wild woods that has forgotten how to trade with the village.

There is an art to recognizing which state of being is required for any given situation. The successful creative knows how and when to shapeshift. Poet. Planner. Marketer. Sales. Poet again.

It is a tragedy that poets tend towards miserable lives. Myself included. Show me someone that makes art when they are happy. Show me their truth (not their sales pitch) and let me learn.

I cannot see beyond my own unique set of circumstances. Is it possible to be whole if I live within a traumatized nervous system? I try again and again to heal myself with poetic medicines. I keep choosing craft over comfort. Is this foolishness or perseverance?

I am unsure if poetry helps or hinders my life. I could feel differently tomorrow. The work that sustains me today, could dry up tomorrow.

My current skills include:
Vocalizing the river nearest to my body.
Listening to birds in flight.
Sitting for hours in the silence of stone.

Unfortunately for me, none of these provide tangible value to society. All this to say what the world has been telling me for years; get a job. Well, get a job that pays more than dogshit. (I currently work a minimum wage job, I’m technically the working poor. To be honest, I don’t really understand how I am always busy but still on the poverty line. Late-stage-capitalism and a double-dip recession?)

Dogshit is fertile soil

Let me ask you this. Where does the soul go when you go to work?

What happens to our heart when you check your emails?

Mine disappear as if they were never real in the first place. The more I think about it, the more I think too much about everything. This is no good. This is no good for anyone.

I struggle to answer these basic questions. Is it more important for my soul to satisfied or my body to be comfortable?

It is a hard truth but I cannot have both at the same time. But I can switch between the two. There is a season for each. It becomes a problem when I hold onto one and deny the death of the other. Like a flower that is never allowed to seed and wither. My question becomes, what is the season of my creativity? am I aligned with my own cycles…

My current skills include:
A feverous obsession with dreams.
A longing for land without concrete.
Allowing annoyingly curious questions that have everything to do with life and nothing to do with making a living.

The seasons turn and I am busy being confused. Are your thoughts easier to control than this?

I know happiness is not the goal. I suspect that soul cares nothing for hunger. Even now, my brain expects me to be somewhere other than where I am. Even now, there is work to do.

Keep making art. Or don’t. There are many, many ways to live. I find it helpful to remind myself: creativity is a choice. Maybe this time I can get out of my own way. Maybe this time I can do what I have to do.