Read Poem: THE MYTH OF POETIC POVERTY by Jay Mandeville

Being poor & being a poet is impossible. Every poet notices the absurdity of it. All the sacrifices that the practiced eye reads between the lines in poetry are not the result of scarcity, but reactions to the superabundance with which the sensory world enchants & deceives us. Only incidentally do poets notice their dinner’s unpaid for, the champagne is rusty tapwater, & the groceries they’ve put on their list have already been plowed under & used for compost. Poetic gardens, by design, are overrun by nature’s scavengers – each poet imagining the mole & the crow as allies in their game. But for all of their vigilance, the traps they contrive with the words they inscribe often remain unheeded & unsprung. Still the wily poets persist, with characteristic stubborn diligence, to gamely & unguardedly snag, bag, & expose all the secret wealth they possess – by means of their…