[driveway]

Originally Posted by old-fart

I just completed a book of poetry. I don't want to post it all here because, frankly, you should have to pay to read my brilliant, life altering, inspiring verse. To give you a tease though, the first poem starts like this...

There once was a man from Nantucket...

I know, great opening line! However, so far, the public has not deemed my poetry worthy of support. Unbelievable I know...

Can you please point me to the appropriate government agency that should step up and support my "art"? For me to write so brilliantly, I require certain "inducements" shall we say, and they can be expensive. I like to refer to them as Operating Expenses.

Thanks.

Well, with a book of poetry there are a few routes that you could take. There are a number of small publishers who may be interested who receive government funding, though I would suggest taking a look at what these companies publish to see if your book fits with their catalogue.

Start here: Book Publishers Association of Alberta

As for straight-up government grants, they are difficult to acquire as an individual writer (trust me, I should know), but the Canada Council for the Arts is definitely the people you want to approach, although it is very difficult for an unpublished author to receive any kind of grant. Generally they go to established artists.

Check here: Canada Council for the Arts

If you're honestly looking to get in on the government art-funding gravy-train, what you're going to need to do is establish an art company that produces (usually that produces other-people's art, not so much your own) and get at least a couple of products under your belt. You'll probably need to start as a not-for-profit society so that you're eligible for grants, which will require a board of directors who receive no money from the company. Then you yourself will become an employee of the not-for-profit, and you can then be paid a salary by the company.

Also, I may suggest that the artistic terrain you seem to be working on has been pretty well worked over. In particular noted author Isaac Asimov has an excellent book of dirty limericks out. I believe you can purchase it from Amazon.com, if you're interested.

Remember, six consecutive identical words is generally considered the benchmark for plagiarism.