How Much Money To The Street Poet
Poet-for-hire Zach Houston works at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. Houston says he is paid about $ii to $20 for each poem. Ralph Wiedemeier/NPR hide caption
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Ralph Wiedemeier/NPR
Poet-for-rent Zach Houston works at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Marketplace in San Francisco. Houston says he is paid about $2 to $20 for each verse form.
Ralph Wiedemeier/NPR
Zach Houston runs his Poem Store (on whatever given sidewalk) with these items: a manual typewriter, a wooden folding chair, scraps of paper, and a white affiche board that reads: "POEMS — Your Topic, Your Price."
Houston usually gets from $2 to $20 for a poem, he says. He'southward received a $100 nib more once. The Oakland, Calif., resident has been composing spontaneous street poems in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2005. Five years ago, it became his primary source of income.
"I quit my last conventional chore on Apr Fools' Solar day, 2007," says Houston, 29. "They didn't believe me, considering I said I was going to write poems, on the street, with a typewriter — for money." Information technology was no April Fools' joke.
On most Saturdays, y'all can discover Houston at San Francisco'southward Ferry Plaza Farmers Marketplace. Passersby eye his sign and sentinel intently equally Houston types away on his Swiss-fabricated, light-green 1968 Hermes Rocket.
"Straight out of Switzerland, homo," Houston says. "And information technology'south my handbag full of language. I love information technology."
A woman visiting from Olympia, Wash., gives Houston iii ideas for her poem: spring break; road trip; and Olympia. Houston starts typing away immediately. In roughly threescore seconds, he pulls out the pocket-size, asymmetrical slice of white paper from the typewriter and reads it aloud:
"Where the Greek gods alive with history and trees
protecting patience of rainforest
where it doesn't rain
simmers, fog, moisture
worship her, mother nature, newly wed
every twelvemonth to visit a season
is called bound
forever returning to its source"
"I've always loved poetry. I've always cared near how linguistic communication works," Houston says.
His mother claims that Houston carried a dictionary around when he was trivial. But fifty-fifty though he loves writing poems, his motivation wasn't "bringing poetry to the world," Houston says. Rather, he idea, "I love writing poems. I bet I could brand a few dollars and survive off of writing poems."
"Believe it or non, it's non totally a reliable income. Who knew?" he says with a laugh.
Zach Houston reads a poem nearly Legos aloud. The work was commissioned by Miles Fogler, x. Cindy Carpien/NPR hibernate caption
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Cindy Carpien/NPR
Zach Houston reads a verse form about Legos aloud. The work was commissioned by Miles Fogler, 10.
Cindy Carpien/NPR
But the career choice has its advantages. Last twelvemonth, Houston's piece of work was featured at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Fine art in Kansas City, Mo., and at SF Camerawork in San Francisco.
As Houston stretches his back between writing poems, someone has been standing backside him for quite some time, paying shut attention: 10-year-old Miles Fogler of San Francisco, who had been walking down the street with his family unit when he noticed Houston.
"I actually like typewriters," Miles says, "and I wanted to see someone write on a typewriter, because I oasis't seen anybody do that." And when Miles saw that Houston was writing poems, he decided he wanted one. His topic of pick? Legos (he'due south building a big structure at home).
Houston is delighted. "Legos are amazing," he says. "What a wonder. Discrete units, human." He starts typing.
Listen to the poem Zach Houston composed for Miles Fogler:
The Legos Poem
Houston says he's written thousands of poems in the past seven years on his Hermes Rocket. He gives them away to his patrons. He writes his e-mail address on the poems and asks them to transport him copies. Some do.
In the past, Houston could be found regularly at Bay Area art festivals, java shops and farmers markets. These days, Houston primarily shows up at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Marketplace on Saturdays. The rest of his time he now devotes to more private writing.
He besides toys with the idea of going back to college, Houston says, so he can "go into arguments with poets about how they're using words all incorrect."
Source: https://www.npr.org/2012/04/17/150722541/the-poem-store-open-for-business
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