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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Job of being Homeless” and “Over and Over Again” 9//16 at “Poetry Aloud” open mic at the Georgetown Public Library (video filmed from a Canon Power Shot camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Quiver with no Home” and “Guilt” 9/24/16 at “Poetry Aloud” open mic at the Georgetown Public Library (video filmed from a Sony camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Quiver with no Home” and “Because This Is What We Do” (cut off) 9/25/16 at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (filmed with a Canon Power Shot camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Quiver with no Home” and “Because This Is What We Do” (cut off) 9/25/16 at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (Canon Power Shot; Edge Detection filter).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Quiver with no Home”, “Because This Is What We Do” and “An Outline to the Apex of Rites of Passage” 9/25/16 at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (the video of this poetry reading was filmed with a Sony camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Quiver with no Home”, “Because This Is What We Do” and “An Outline to the Apex of Rites of Passage” 9/25/16 at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (this video was filmed with a Sony camera, and then given a Threshold filter).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ July 2017 Book Release Reading 7/5/17 of Down in the Dirt’s book “On the Rocks” poems “Job of Being Homeless”, “Quiver with no Home”, “out there”, “census”, “judge”, “Nobody Finds Me” and “Cast in Stone” in Half Price Books Community Poetry (Lumix camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ July 2017 Book Release Reading 7/5/17 of Down in the Dirt’s book “On the Rocks” poems “Job of Being Homeless”, “Quiver with no Home”, “out there”, “census”, “judge”, “Nobody Finds Me” and “Cast in Stone” in Half Price Books Community Poetry (Sony camera).

Job of being Homeless Janet Kuypers 9/23/16 So, the magazine editor in me has gotten to the point where I start to base my opinions on the homeless by the writing submissions I receive. Now, the poets send me submissions of a homeless man at one corner who lost his leg in the war, and a homeless women at another corner who has two children to feed. And then I get the short stories, the prose about life in th streets, about a man who recently lost his job, got the ropes from another homeless man in Austin: Don’t take someone else’s corner, And only put in two hours a day of asking for money on the streets and you’ll have enough drinking money until the next day. Follow everyone’s code here, print on your cardboard sign that you only want a dollar in the winter months, but after Memorial Day get a new sign and only ask for a quarter. And whatever you do, pull on the heart strings for anyone who claims to be a Christian, and make sure you sign ends with the words “God Bless.” It might be hard for the first few days, But you gotta put your pride on hold. This is tax free, the government doesn’t own you, and as I said, just two hours a day to get drunk at night and sleep under the stars. So, as you see, I’m a bit torn, because I keep getting these two different perspectives on the homeless life, because this is what the creative people send as submissions to my literary magazines... So, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to believe. Do I have hope for the wayward soul or do I ignore the drunken bum. Which idea do I support when I see one man selling free newspapers to commuters until he gets a job and can break free of the cycle, before I see a man get out of his parked car, say good bye to someone on his iPhone, put it and his ear buds in his denim pocket and grab a cardboard sign to walk to a street corner for his next shift of tax free work. I’ve heard some can make six figures. As I said, tax free. So, I’m a bit torn, and I don’t know what to believe.

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