Poetry is (Not) a Hustle

When Atticus Review announced its experiment with NFTs, a lively and enriching conversation got going at Lit Mag News. (Where else?) Comments under Becky Tuch’s substack ran the gamut, with references to the Gutenberg Bible, enshittification, Martin Heidegger, and genocide. To paraphrase my personal favorite: “Poetry is not a hustle.”

This sounds great, but is it true? In my limited experience, poetry is its own special kind of hustle. Wine and cheese conspiracies, revenge of the chapbook, deadly slam takedowns, crimes of the state laureate, enjambment. Do the hustle! But poetry won’t get you rich. This, we freely admit.

Then why are we encouraging you to start a digital wallet? So you can purchase, collect, curate, trade, and display your literary NFTS, of course. And what exactly is a digital wallet? Rather than trying to explain it myself, especially since I barely understand, I’m going to share the definition listed on Coinbase, the exchange platform where I successfully bought my first cryptocurrency:

Creating a crypto wallet is not that hard, but there is a learning curve, which, if you’re like me, includes “new-tech” resistance. Don’t worry. It’s not any more threatening than your first try at online banking, paying through the Venmo app, or posing nude on OnlyFans. We made a cheat-sheet with some detailed instructions for how to open a Lace wallet. We’re suggesting the Lace wallet because we will be using the Cardano blockchain to offer NFTs. The Lace wallet is user-friendly and allows you to hold and exchange ADA, the native cryptocurrency on that blockchain.

Okay, I have a Wallet. Now what?

When you get your new crypto wallet, it will unfortunately be empty. Time to purchase some crypto! I had big challenges with this step. My first attempt to buy crypto was via the Lace wallet itself, which sends you to outside vendors. (Banxa, Moonpay, Transak, etc) I don’t recommend doing it this way. The problem I had was with identity verification. Long story, I never got it to work.

I had immediate success when I switched to Coinbase. I bought about $150 worth of crypto there (200 ADA). It went down in value immediately, plus I had to pay a fee of $8.38 for the honor of purchasing the crypto.

(When I say it dropped immediately, it dropped by something like twenty bucks in five minutes.)

Editorial Note from someone who knows more: the value of your crypto will fluctuate from moment to moment. It does not mean you've lost (or made) money, unless you sell the crypto at that lower (or higher) price.

Anyway, we aren’t doing this to get rich or trade crypto. Just think of it as ADA, not dollars. And with that ADA you’re…starting a library? An art collection? A curio display case? Something like that. I used the address of my digital wallet to transfer the crypto into the Lace wallet. Here’s a good tutorial on just about everything you need to know (maybe more than you need to know) for getting started with the Lace wallet. (Atticus Review highly recommends James at MoneyZG as a trusted source for learning about crypto.)

This is all so scary! Money on the interwebs! Digital funds transfers! And with crypto wallets, you get something called a Seed Phrase. 12 to 24 words in a very specific order and if you ever lose it, you lose ALL the money in your crypto account for ever and ever and ever. I’m getting Treasure Island vibes. Then again, what’s more hopeful than buried treasure?

(But seriously, DO NOT LOSE YOUR SEED PHRASE!)

Again, this is a literary magazine, not a ponzi scheme. I’m keeping my wallet at a (fluctuating) $150. A bloodthirsty speculator can collect a lot of poetry and short fiction with a budget like that. Am I right?

Boo Trundle
Editor

Advertisement

All of your work. All in one place. Automatically.

How much time do you spend manually updating your portfolio? And how often is it still outdated?

Say goodbye to the hassle of constantly updating your portfolio. Authory creates a beautiful, self-updating portfolio that automatically pulls in your new articles as you publish them, no matter where.

And that’s not all: Authory also backs up all your published articles automatically, so you never have to worry about losing your work.

Join thousands of writers who already use Authory to impress potential clients and employers.

Get your free portfolio today

We leave you with this poem:

The Gaming Room, by Charles Baudelaire
from Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du Mal)

The armchairs of worn satin; the aged courtesans,
Livid and rouged, their eyes relentless, their eyebrows blacked,
Jingling eternally from their withered ears, to attract
Attention, their huge earrings, and ogling behind their fans;
The long green table, the rows of lipless faces, the lips
Drained of all color; the gaping, toothless mouths; the unrest
Of hundreds of white nervous fingers, stacking the chips,
Or searching the empty pocket, the convulsive breast;
The dirty ceiling, the blaze of crystal chandeliers,
The low-hung lamps illumining with a crude glare
The ravaged brows of poets, the scars of grenadiers,
Who come to risk the earnings of their lifeblood there.
— Such is the lurid spectacle that with calm dread
I saw as in a melancholy dream unroll:
Myself, too, sitting in a deserted corner, my head
Propped in my hands, mute, weary, jealous to my soul,
Jealous of all that rabble, of the lust of it,
The terrible gaiety of those old whores, the smell
And noise of life, for which they frantically sell
Some remnant of their honor, their beauty, or their wit.
And suddenly I was affrighted at my own heart, to feel
Such envy of all men running wildly and out of breath
Nowhere, and who prefer, like those around that wheel,
Pain, horror, crime, insanity — anything — to death!