How popular is poetry, and how much can I make?

Question:I am a new poet I have been writing poems for a few years. I have just been accpeted by an agent who is going to try to work with me to sell my work.

I really love writting. Does anyone know how well it pays? or know of any good ways of getting noticed by big publishers?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I am a new poet I have been writing poems for a few years. I have just been accpeted by an agent who is going to try to work with me to sell my work.

I really love writting. Does anyone know how well it pays? or know of any good ways of getting noticed by big publishers?

You have already gotten past the first and biggest hurdle. You have an agent. Be careful if he asks you for money. It is his job to get you published. Getting noticed by big publishers is his job.

I would keep my day job if all you're going to write is poetry. Not a lot of it sells. If you branch out into short stories and novels, the scene changes a lot. So, do something else to put food on the table and write poetry because it feeds your soul. It works.

This is actually a far better question than most people realize.
I cut and pasted this from an article I found on Google using the search terms "american poetry magazine bequest"

THREE YEARS ago, a pharmaceutical heiress made Poetry magazine, the venerable monthly that discovered T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and Marianne Moore, the richest literary journal in the history of the world. The sum of $175 million, given by Ruth Lilly, made the subject of poetry into news fit to print in just about every newspaper in America.

No 5hit!!!! $175M to a poetry magazine. I remember when that story was in the news. Everybody was thinking that submissions to Poetry Mag would go way up and they would start paying off, but I don't know what happened since then. I was at a literary journal meeting about a month ago and several people were talking about this same thing ... but nobody knew much.

Obviiously the answers to all of the questions you posed is this: write a letter to Poetry magazine (or visit website) and find out the true skinny story.