1810 was a good time to be a poet -- big shirts, Venetian palaces, and adoring fans.

It's hard, you know, with all those doe-eyed groupies hanging around the mansion (that I bought with all the royalties from my chapbook) in bikinis, swooning, saying that I'm "mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

Come on Quincy, everybody knows you are a good and caring person. What you say is so obviously true that it's almost boring. In the UK it certainly still helps to have been at Oxford University (as I was). I should guess that in Ireland having 'Republican sympathies',even an uncle in the IRA, wouldn't hinder you one bit. My wife's great-uncle was shot dead by the Black and Tans but that doesn't, unfortunately for me, have much traction over here. I think it's a good time to be a poet because (here anyway) publication in a proper book is easier than it has ever been. Of course SELLING the thing is another ball game entirely, but, hell, you can't have everything. Another reason it's a good time tobe a poet is the existence of the Sphere. It's changed my life, not entirely but measurably. Good for you guys.

We get the same problem around here - all dying in the snow, rotting away and attracting vermin and causing cholera.

They probably didn't even know they'd been born, either.

A great time to be alive, Holly. Never mind the details.

I'm with Stephen on this one with his big shirts and adoring fans. Even 100 years ago poets and poetry had a far higher profile than today. Poems in newspapers were common, children learnt poetry at school and there was a culture of knowing verse by heart. People from all areas of life knew the names of the great poets and could make jokes about them - 'Kelly and Sheets'. Our public has long deserted us and modern verse has little attraction for kids who prefer pop music, cinema, computer games etc. And when did you last see an hour-long mainstream TV programme with poets talking about what they do?