$100,000,000 for Poetry!

[HomerPindar]

That's right folks, the Lilly pharmacutical matriarch has just left the whopper of an inheritance to Poetry, the Poetry Magazine in particular. Here's the story, in case you might have missed it: Poetry

My question, to all you starving artist out there (and if your not, buy me lunch ), what affect do you think this will have? Should have? impressions? thoughts? the one hundred million dollar poem?

HomerPindar

 

[OT]

an interesting bit from the article: "Poets earn $2 per line ..."

I can almost imagine ...
In place far far a away there's a dimly lit poetry sweatshop where poor poets are given stubby pencils and used envelope backs and sternly admonished to complete their quota of either five Haikus or a single sonnet -- before lunch, if you please.

eh ,shrug> ... it's a liv'n.

 

[Angeline]

Nobody gets rich from poetry

ok maybe Rod McKuen and the guy who wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but otherwise no. Even Ginsburg was constantly doing speaking tours to get some money.

I think at this point we probably all have a better chance of getting hired by Poetry mag to send out rejection slips for all the poems that will be submitted to them than getting published in it!

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I had heard about this lady. Her story is both inspiring and redeeming.

 

[sideshow_cecil]

the one hundred million dollar poem

in the dark days of the cold war
an evil empire stood
but standing against them was president Ron
protecting all that is good
standing strong behind a wall and a curtain
the communist state unbending
but Ron had a plan to bring them all down
ridiculous defense spending
a billion here and a few billion there
for planes and missiles and tanks
tax dollars to defend freedom
by sitting in contractors banks
but then one year a General
while requisitioning bathroom tissue
for some reason also requested
one poem, government issue
twenty years later the poem arrived
having been stalled in subcommittee
the poem was an ode to a flower
and the flower wasn’t even pretty
the metaphors were sloppy, there was no symbolism
it’s flow seemed to creak and lurch
but of course the company who wrote it
specialized in aerospace research
and what was the price tag on this verse
that could have been penned by a kid?
one hundred million dollars
and that was the lowest bid

 

[HomerPindar]

Great poem sideshow!

My first thought ~ Poetry Mag can afford a page ad in any given newpaper, on any given day, to publish any given poetry it wants. And the cost would hardly break their bank now.

Poetry in newprint is something this country hasn't seen in far too many years, maybe a hundred or so. (Yeah, it use to be common enough, hard to imagine) So, why not bring it back now that the cost isn't an issue ~ and perhaps make an issue on what you bring at the same time.

HomerPindar