There's no money in poetry,
but then there's no poetry in money either - Robert Graves
FREE VERSE AT DISCOUNT PRICES
There's no big bucks in poetry books
No budgetary boom with a slim volume
The general rule is -
no Spondoolis
No career's crueller
for lack of moolah
The weight of the wampum will underwhelm
Royalties appear only in the quantum realm
The financial projection for a new collection
will hardly evoke an instant erection
Fat cats and poesy
don't sit that cosy
The gist of it -
you make jack shit
You'll e'er be near John Clare
far from Lord Byron or a billionaire
Yes to tender words - but no legal tender
It's less Johnny Cash more Stephen Spender
To expect literary lolly is fruitless folly
even with off rhymes you're off your trolley
Folding green and photos of the queen
in wordsmiths' wallets such wads are seldom seen
It's not the racket to pocket a packet
or put a pretty penny in your poet's purse
Being a bard - banking is hard
There's no blank cheque for blank verse
no bread and jam in an epigram
no chunk of change in a clerihew
A magnum opus is monetarily hopeless
Revenue due for a new haiku is barely a bob or two
You'll not get rich quick with a limerick
not pack a bundle off the back of a rondel
not cement a cent coining a lament
To earn a load from an ode is seldom a la mode
Lidl won't take an idyll
To a tanka - they'll say 'no thankya'
A traditional ballad is also invalid
A rondeau will raise no dough
An epic or lyric - zip zilch zero
However clever your elegy
it'll never a big seller be
you'll ever be the feller with 50p
Each villanelle's a bagatelle
Hell, they just don't sell that well
Savings from a sonnet ?
don't bank on it
Ain't no gold in them thar hills
apart from golden daffodils
Uttering metaphor
is better for
putting the fun into insufficient funds
the wherewithal
to make a withdrawal
is more often moribund
The lure of loads of lucre
you may as well bazooka
Not wishing to come on tactless
poets pursuing profit should pack it in
you'll make sod all contactless
and even less chip and pin
No matter how moving or funny
you'll forever
be financially unsound
Your name will never
be synonymous with money
unless you're Ezra Pound ... See MoreSee Less
Photo
IT'S FREE. NO NEED TO BOOK - JUST COME ALONG FOR 7.30pm.
This Thursday Phoenix Art Space, Brighton I will be talking to one of my favourite people on Earth. IT WILL BE FUN - OR YOUR MONEY BACK. ... See MoreSee Less
Photo
