Windows on My Unravelling: Art, Poverty, and Art about Poverty
Usually it's just poems and announcements here, but for a change here's a slice of life -- my life. It originally appeared on our Substack (which features a new poem of mine almost every day and which you might want to subscribe to). About three months ago, I found myself unable to pay my rent. My work as a freelance instructional designer, writer and editor had been becoming increasingly less lucrative for years, and the rise of AI tools meant that more and more clients now had a way to produce “good enough” training materials for far less than I could charge for better materials. The math wasn’t mathing, as they say. I applied for time-limited provincial income support (less than half my rent). I signed up for Food Bank hampers. I worried I would end up on the street. In the end, a friend who’s also a struggling freelancer and an artist (in her case a visual artist) came through with a place to live — a room in her house for far less than the two-bedroom suite I’d been renti...
