Since the publication of milk & honey, the poetry genre has become one of the fastest-growing categories in book publishing. Kaur now has 3 million Instagram followers. This month, she finishes her sweeping American tour. Within the past year, she appeared on Jimmy Fallon, made the Forbes 30 under 30 list, and sold out a “ World Tour de Force” across India and the U.K. Then milk & honey was published in 2014 and hit the New York Times best-seller list in 2016. “My mind-set was: No way can poetry pay your rent,” she told us. She started her career by posting her work to Tumblr in 2012 and then gradually switched to Instagram, but her social-media strategy wasn’t yet making her nearly enough money to live. The 25-year-old Canadian poet outsold Homer two years ago: Her first collection, milk & honey, has been translated into 40 languages and has sold 3.5 million copies, stealing the position of best-selling poetry book from The Odyssey. Rupi Kaur is a case study in how dramatically the world of poetry has changed since then. The poet’s story has long been one of a double life, split between two urgent duties: making a living and making art. Charles Bukowski held a bevy of odd jobs, including work as a dishwasher, a truck driver, a gas-station attendant, and a postal clerk. Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive. Poetry has always been an art form, but it has rarely been a career even for the most legendary poets. He accepted money from relatives to buy underwear and pajamas, and anxiety over his finances drove him to breakdowns. But even then, despite his bank salary, the man who has often been called the greatest poet of the 20th century struggled to make ends meet. Alfred Prufrock-had been published to great acclaim. By the time he started as a clerk in 1917, his most popular poem- The Love Song of J. each day, and in his free moments between filing and tabulating balance sheets, he wrote. He worked in the foreign-transactions department from 9:15 a.m. Tom spent his days as a clerk, two floors below ground level in the cellars of Lloyds Bank.
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