Dream Job?

£30k-£33k pro rata, 2 days per week

Published by the Poetry Society since 1912, Poetry Review has become the most widely read poetry magazine in the UK with a circulation of approximately 4,000.

Many great and well-loved poets have appeared on its pages, from W.H. Auden and Robert Frost to Jo Shapcott and Wislawa Szymborska.

I’m eminently unqualified for such a post but it does sound exciting, working shoulder to shoulder with the greats, supporting, inspiring (that last one is actually a requirement), but you’d probably need to know a lot more about enjambment than I do.

What would be my ideal job…?
I’ve been a reader and judge of a couple of literary competitions and that was fun, but you have to go through a lot of dross to get to the good stuff. (One was a novel competition and entries had to be accompanied by a synopsis. I never again want to read  the phrase a journey of self-discovery/rite of passage especially when it’s obvious the writer only has a sketchy idea of the plot. They might as well have put: something happens in the middle but I haven’t worked out what.)
I don’t think my dream job has changed since I was in Miss Meakin’s class in St Peter and Paul School in Amwell Street. I wanted to make up stories then (and write them down, although my spelling was so rudimentary I had to read them aloud straightaway otherwise I’d forget what the jumbled collection of letters meant). I still want to do that and apparently so do a lot of people
In a survey  of 2,000 employees by Creative & Cultural Skills  writer topped the list of dream jobs for British adults (it came sixth on the list for children) which news comes neatly after my post on the vast rewards of being a Booker prizewinner.

Here was the the top ten list.

1) Writer
2) Teacher
3) Landscape Gardener
4) Paramedic
5) Photographer
6) Police Officer
7) Physiotherapist
8) Movie Director
9) Restaurant Owner
10) Musician 

Reckon numbers one and ten are most likely to earn below minimum wage, a lot below, and number nine probably offers the most opportunity of becoming bankrupt

What job would you do for less than the minimum wage and still smile about it?

…and if being Poetry Review Editor really is your dream job and you know the difference between a Sestet and a Sestina you can find out more by clicking here