The most recent Poets & Writers magazine closes on the final page with an essay by Harryette Mullen, an American poet and recent winner of the Jackson Poetry Prize, which carries with it a $50,000 purse. The generous amount will allow the poet to carry on her work without having to worry about keeping body and soul together — as Somerset Maugham was fond of saying — at least for a year or two.
In the essay, she writes of a time long gone, when San Francisco was the center of the American poetry scene and poetry actually mattered. Back when the Beats were as well-known — or nearly so — as the Beatles and words were the currency of intelligent society.
In it, she writes, “Time was more important than money. Life was more important than poetry.”
I’m sitting in a trendy Dallas cafe as I write this, about to meet with fellow business owners in the time-honored ritual of “networking,” nurturing business relationships and friendships, partly because entrepreneurship can be a lonely business, and it’s nice to have fellow travelers in this lonely road with whom to commiserate, but also partly in the hope that the effort might turn into more business further along that lonely road. It’s how it works, and we all understand that.
I recall Ms. Mullen’s lines, though, which have been ringing in my head all night, echoing in my dreams. I wonder, “If time is more important than money, and life is more important than poetry, then who am I — a writer, a business owner, a poet in spirit if not in vocation — in a society there 
money is considered more important than anything?”
We Americans talk about the importance of family, of love, of friendships. We create films that “lift the human spirit” — to wield an overused phrase in the film criticism industry — and laugh knowingly as we watch or read satire that skewers our obsession with trivia and the emptiness of much of what passes for “culture” in our society.
Yet we talk of nothing but money. Our heroes are hungry entrepreneurs with the eight-figure incomes, titans of industry, filmmakers more well-known for how much they command per picture than what their films actually mean. I’m obsessed with the numbers on my balance sheets. My “books” aren’t the ones that line the cluttered shelves of my home — the Maughams, the Lawrences, the fiction and history and literature and even the occasional romance novel — but rather the thin, all-important sheets of paper my accountant keeps in his office. I measure my worth as a writer based on how much per word I command, how much I can charge a client by the hour to spin more froth about her product or service. In this world, words remain the currency, but in the literal, financial sense.
If time is more important than money, and life is more important than poetry, then who am I? If my time is spent pursuing money and forgetting poetry, then where does my spirit fall in a universe that couldn’t care less?
Photo credit: “tiny book,” by bookgrl on Flickr.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
{ 3 comments }
You raise a fascinating point. I like thinking about time. Money and time have an interesting relationship.
Money is really a measurement of time. Some people’s time is in more demand than others. In a free market system the supply and demand set the price. Things with great demands and short supply, such as the services of a highly paid surgeon, will surge up, while others in great supply and low demand like unskilled labour will drop down.
But as beings caught in the river of time, we still have the choice to pursue other vocations that bring us beyond other measurements of time like money.
And that is where poetry comes in. It’s like an eddy that takes us off to the side of the river for a time, where time loses it’s strength to push us forward. We can leave a little marker behind of a moment caught in time. Or not. The surgeon and the day labourer both may find themselves writing a poem, or painting an important picture.
The important thing is that a person is not what they do, or have done. We aren’t defined by either the job or the poem but are something beyond both–a creator.
What a lovely post. I struggle with this all the time. What’s more, very few people acknowledge how much skill (and often training) it takes to write well. Many often exploit it, asking you to write for free for “exposure”. Too bad so many writers are willing to do that, which makes writing valued even less.
I enjoy your writing and your blog very much. I, too, am an avid Francophile. Keep up the good work!
Dear Darina,
Bonjour, and merci for your lovely compliment! I’m so sorry for the delay in my response. I’ve no excuse except to say that my business has overtaken my life and schedule to the point that I’m actually on my 2nd flu of the month. Blech. Brownies and Thera-Flu — great lunch combination, if not exactly French.
Whenever people ask me to write for the “exposure,” I’m reminded of the snarky-but-true remark a fellow writer offered up: “People die from exposure.” How true! What’s really aggravating is when you’re asked to write for free despite the fact that you’re extremely experienced and has a fat, healthy writing portfolio. What exactly is this “exposure” going to do to me that my previous clips haven’t already done? Exposure doesn’t pay the bills, nor does it respect the talent.
Merci mille fois for the support. I finally hired a couple of new staff to help me maintain a more sane and healthy schedule, which will allow me to focus more on MIFG and nurture the community that has supported it for so long! I can’t wait to kickstart it again!
Salut,
Marjorie
Comments on this entry are closed.