Amateur poems vs professional poems, Max?Can you provide an example? Some of my younger poems I pick up again, and, in some ways my younger self, with all the obvious flaws, was better than my older self (with other flaws). Is amateur the right way to put it? I think the question posed by the thread is flawed. Dedicating your life to poetry often means being a professor. I don't have a problem with that. I did it. But "poetry as a profession" is pejorative. Because I'm not on the road with Jack Kerouac (never liked him much), or do it passionately in secret away from my wife or hedge fund doesn't make my work any more or less valid, or "natural," which is, I think, the word we're really using here. Except for those world famous poet teachers, right? Absolute silliness. Artists have to make money, too, and it's nice to teach what you love.
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