Doin' It For Free

As a novelist, journalist, poet, or singer-songwriter you may demand payment everytime you read, write or perform your work. Maybe you get what you ask for and maybe you don’t, but it’s hard to earn what you think the work is worth. If you made a lot, you think, “Gosh, I could have gotten more.” And if you you made a little, well, you KNOW you could have gotten more.

One cure for this dissatisfaction is to occasionally do the work for free. It is absolutely amazing how doing it for free can free the artist inside you to do exactly what s/he pleases. If you aren’t getting paid, you might as well risk that crazy phrase you thought about omitting. Go ahead and play that song you’re sure is too goofy to be a hit. You can try something on an unsuspecting audience and see how it lays--what are their instant reactions? Doin’ it for free can be rewarding on both the giving and receiving ends. It is, after all, freeing!

As a poet, doing it for free is part of the job description. A person doesn’t become a poet in order to make a lot of money–girlfriends maybe, but not money. Generally poets don’t become anything so much as discover who they already are–rebellious, sensitive, outspoken wordsmiths who respond to practically everything from their hearts. Passing the hat for a poet is as familiar as passing the collection plate for the preacher. The real rewards are more often found in a touched heart, a tear, a smile of recognition, an audience who groans, sighs, laughs with you. Not even applause is a true measure of appreciation, since there are poems that inspire silence instead. But applause helps. Yeah, it definitely helps.

Now for you non-poets, don’t let this entry be your excuse for not paying your local poets and performers. Hire them when you can. Buy their books and CD’s. In fact, it is a responsible community who supports their local artists and artisans the same way they support their local businesses. If somebody doesn’t pay them for their work, artists, writers, poets, crafts people can’t continue to make the world a better, more beautiful and meaningful place to live. They’ll have to get jobs painting houses, landscaping, housecleaning--anything and everything that pays their rent and puts food on the table. And at the end of the day, there will be little energy left for the work they were meant to do---entertaining and enlightening you.

Recently, I was asked to read for 3 classes of sixth-greaders at lunchtime. The teacher asked me primarily because she was having a difficult time finding a poet to help her and her kids celebrate National Poetry Month (April). Nobody on her list of local writers would come to the school and read for free. I said, Of course I will.” I am invested in teaching young people to read, write, appreciate poetry. It’s part of my job, with or without pay. They are my future, too.

The kids loved it, for awhile transported into a world both similar and different from their own. They were a wonderful audience; responsive, inquisitive, enthusiastic. My payment: 60 hand-made thank you notes and a handful of their very first poems which were inspired by a hand-out I’d given their teachers. Their words: “You rock, Ms. Knott!” “Your poetry is awesome!” “When I grow up, I want to be a poet like you.” and “Your true fan..” are payment enough to get me through the next creative dry spell or the housepainting I’ll do to support my writing habit. These words, their poems are a balm in this world where violence pays better than peace...or love...or poetry. Their words lifted me up at least a half-step towards true enlightenment.

Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss, your passion.” Not the money. And so I do. I make my money doing half a dozen other jobs. Occasionally, I even make a little money with my poems, but not a lot. Never a lot. But then I’m not making a living writing poetry, I’m making a life.