I like his contrast between "honest labor," based on an acquired and acquirable body of knowledge, and poems that just happen, under the radar poems so to speak. I know I continue to add a little value to poems that took me a lot of work, and perhaps to subtract value from ones I tossed off in minutes. Surely the labor counts for something.
As Whistler put it in his libel suit, "I don't ask five thousand pounds (or whatever) for five minutes' work, but for the experience of a lifetime."
Cheers,
John
Update: 200 guineas, evidently:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...h-1440343.html