Inc magazine has a fascinating piece about William Roetzheim, a very successful serial entrepreneur, and a poet.
Retired at 50, in 2005, Roetzheim made a list of all the things he hadn’t done “because they didn’t pass the litmus tests of, Will this help me in my business pursuits?” First off: writing poetry. But he didn’t want to waste time wandering lonely as a cloud. “I treated poetry the same way I treat everything,” says Roetzheim. “There’s a mission, there’s a goal, and there’s an objective. I even had Microsoft project plans for it.”
For a year, Roetzheim spent six hours a day reading books of and on poetry. He eventually self-published a volume of verse and compiled an anthology, The Giant Book of Poetry, which is taught in colleges across the country. That anthology underwrites the small press Roetzheim founded to publish his work and the work of a dozen other writers.
I like his approach to writing poetry. He takes it seriously, focuses, researches and reads before committing himself, and invests his own time, money and energy into self-publishing before he expects others to invest in him. I think this is a model for most poetry-writers today – and perhaps always has been.
I also don’t think it’s necessary to have his money to do the same thing. Your first self-published collection could be eight poems neatly laid out on two A4 sheets, folded and stapled, and sold for a rand to your family and friends. Start somewhere, but take it seriously.