10 May 30 - June 5, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents The Cost of Being a Poet in Dallas The city’s literary scene is gaining global momentum, but what does that mean for verse makers? BY VANESSA QUILANTAN W hen strangers meet, social constructs prompt the inevi- table dance we know as small talk. In this one-two step of exchanging names, how-are-yous, anecdotes about the weather and what you do for work, it’s possible — though unlikely — that someone will answer the latter question by telling you they’re a poet. You may wonder what it means for that to be someone’s job. The great Audre Lorde said, “Poetry is not a luxury.” And it is certainly more acces- sible than ever in the age of social media, but does that make it a financially sustainable profession? Since the 1950s, poetry has con- tinued to fall out of the cultural mainstream. Its shelf space at today’s bookstores has shrunk, and its place in popular magazines has all but disappeared. So, how, exactly, does it work to be a writer of poetry by trade? How do the prac- titioners of an ancient craft turned niche lit- erary genre feed and house themselves in the 21st century? Dallas poet Darryll Ratcliff notes, “Toilet paper isn’t a luxury, but it’s got a price tag too.” “No one’s parents wanted them to become a poet, right?” Ratcliff says. “Writers want to figure out the economic part because A, they’re more likely to be successful. And then B, they’re also trying to prove to their parents that they aren’t wasting their lives.” As a longtime figure in Dallas arts and culture, Ratcliff has made something of a Renaissance man of himself. He’s an artist, art critic, event producer, founder of ASH Studios (the once-DIY space he’s grown into an elevated arts destination over the last de- cade) and an authoritative advocate for local creatives. But he makes most of his money as a fine-arts broker and business manager. He wagers that the most lucrative opportunities for Dallas poets are corporate. “You can get a performing slot at a corpo- rate conference, and that’s probably going to be your highest-paid gig,” he says. “Literally, they might just want you to read like two po- ems. And you can get like $2,500 for that, about 15 minutes [of work].” Dr. Sanderia Faye, acclaimed novelist and seasoned fundraiser for the Dallas literary arts, worked in corporate giving within the finance sector before she started her writing career. “There is money out there,” she says. “It’s about knowing how and where to find it.” Dr. Mag Gabbert, Dallas’ new poet laureate, teaches poetry at Southern Methodist Univer- sity. She often finds herself having career-path conversations with students, and what she tells them can be pretty disheartening. “You can be a celebrated, award-winning, well-known poet, and that’s still not going to be the thing that pays your bills,” Gabbert says. “The only people I know who are full- time poets don’t actually write and produce poetry full time. They make their money from teaching or poetry-related speaking gigs, work like that.” Some pop culture moments in recent years paint the false impression that the po- etry industry is thriving. In 2013, Canadian poet Rupi Kaur famously expanded poetry’s potential in the internet age by amassing a fanbase on social media. Her first book was published a year later, and since then she’s sold a combined 12 million copies of her works (according to Simon & Schuster), which have been translated into more than 40 languages. In 2021, London best-seller Arch Hades became the world’s highest-paid poet when her 648-line rhyming narrative poem “Arca- dia” sold for $525,000 at Christie’s New York, setting a record for the most expensive poem ever written. (It was a “nine-minute, 48-second-long abstract animation, soundtracked with ASMR-esque electronic music by musician RAC” sold as an NFT, ac- cording to Financial Times.) But the 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, which surveys 22.4 million Americans every five years about engagement with the arts and letters, reports that only 9.2% of U.S. adults read poetry. In comparison, 48.5% of adults in the U.S. read at least one book of prose per year. The genre’s audience is small. Despite social media’s short-form pack- aging advantages and the rising Kathy Tran ▼ Culture >> p12 Dallas-area poets and writers from far left, clockwise: Scarlett Gray, Darryl Ratcliff, Sebastian H. Paramo, Reverie Koniecki, Mag Gabbert, Eva Regicide and Logen Cure
