Eileen Myles gives me hope. Not necessarily for money for poetry. Although I did get paid £50 for my poems in Tin House and that felt somehow a little validating. Even more than the money was having poems in Tin House and the generosity of poet friends. Eileen Myles, like many I would imagine, gives me hope with her openness. And for feeling less ashamed and guilty for being a poet from working class background etc. etc. I want to feel less guilty for writing and art and to stop thinking I should be doing my real paid work when I am writing and doing art yadda yadda. Working class ethos. I can't afford to slum it and be a radical East or South London art school hipster (no safety net or backup whatsoever) but I feel the radical ideas of the middle class artists and thinkers and art school graduates. At least some of it. It is nice to see someone with a similar working class background get some cultural capital. Although I am realising it is not common. Still seems there is a hard to climb class system in publishing and the art world. But also grateful, somehow, to end up going to university and to have time, minus the guilt and feeling unworthy, unentitled and like an imposter, and via very simple living with no children, car, pension, property, and piddly savings, to do the art. I want to feel less guilty abut taking up space in the world. It all depends where you are looking and what you are comparing yourself to. I am lucky.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2016/04/times-ive-got-paid/
Labels: class system and art, east london, Eileen Myles, gentrification, hipster ethos, hipsters, marcus slease, money for poetry, Poetry Magazine, slumming it, working class art
