The Market for Poetry

Maybe somewhere there’s another planet

leaving aside for a moment the question of intelligent life,

where you can’t land without some poems

and a self addressed, stamped spaceship.

On Earth, they tell us of the triumph of Capital

which insists that everything is an economic exchange.

What I want to know is how it started.

Did somebody once say, “Hey.

I can sell this stuff!”

Around some ancient campfire

did a visiting wanderer pass out flyers

advertising a reading before the next buffalo hunt?

The Psalms, we know, were a big hit,

compiled, as they were, into the ultimate anthology.

Virgil got rich singing the Aeneid for Augustus

then died and toured the underworld with Dante

who entertained all the burghers of Florence, anxious to learn

the torments of their destined circles of hell.

Milton, that savvy marketer, figured out that

the Fall of Man always sells.

In the early days of the mass market economy

Whitman learned how to exploit the slogans,

“New and Revised”, “Now with more Poem Power.”

In the post Eliot Wasteland wasteland

poets from Bob Dylan to Leonard Cohen

figured out the real money’s in the music

and pretty soon all the rockers knew

the less poetry, the more money.

Still, itinerate poets roam the literary wildscape

now and then one even does a book tour

though it’s hard to believe even Greyhound tickets are that cheap.

Academics of course, do it for the Tenure Track

assigning their books to their students, who,

with visions of their immortality

can’t wait to loose money on their own books.

It’s not like poetry is worthless, hell

even I’ve been bought a beer or two.

The boys do it to get into the girls.

The girls do it to bitch about the boys.

I do it because nobody told me I’m allowed to,

being absolutely unlicensed and non-accredited,

a selfish, masturbatory rite

that at least gets a double take from the good ‘ole boys

who up to now figured I was just a regular guy.

Most poetry is bought by poets.

Most poetry is heard by poets.

So, here’s an idea:

Let’s get every poet in this bookish city

to gather at a big reading,

somewhere up on a mountain, perhaps,

where they all get to read one poem.

If we tell them it’s a benefit

for unfortunate souls struggling somewhere,

they’ll even pay to get in.

And when we’re all assembled

fussing with the microphone and sound system,

somebody lights the fuse

and we blast off for that planet I was talking about.