[Jim Moonan]

.

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

Not sure I agree with this logic, Julie. All poets have had dry spells. I guess I should ask how long the dry spell has to be in order for a poet to forfeit the title.

Although I have been a poet by "condition" all my life, the years when it felt most intense was when I was in college (and now, ironically). It was my identity. People knew me as "the poet". I was published monthly in the college newspaper. I started a college literary magazine. I wrote songs for theatrical performances that the theatre department produced. I looked and acted like I thought a poet should act. After college I got lost in life. In the intervening years between then and now I have always thought of myself as a poet by condition. Life had gotten in the way. C'est la vie . Recently I have reacquainted myself with the art of being a poet. It's a condition.

If the question is "what makes one a poet by profession?" that's easy: The word “Poet” appears after a comma with the poet's name. They make a living from being a poet. I suppose you can also be a part-time poet. In today's vernacular, gig poets. Wiki will tell you who is and is not a poet by profession.

But I'm not a poet by profession any more than I am a baseball player by profession. Nor does the fact that I've written a song or two and feel a kinship with those that do write songs as a profession doesn't mean I'm a songwriter by profession. A person is not a gymnast simply because they take gymnastic classes. A person who dabbles in theatre and performs in a play on stage is still not an actor by profession. Frost's declaration that to be a poet is a condition get's more to the crux of the matter than some arbitrary prize money awarded to a poet as being the litmus test for calling yourself a professional poet. Every waking minute of my life is colored by my poetic sensibilities.But I'm not a poet by profession.

I had an uncle who revealed to me during a long road trip out west that he had gone through a phase in his life in his early forties when he was suddenly compelled to write poetry. He had never written a poem before that time. He said he wrote poetry every day for nearly two years before the "urge" left him. I never got to read any of it until he died a few years ago and his family gathered up his collection of poems and made a chapbook of it. It was all about his overzealous religious beliefs written in childish rhyme. Yawn. He was not a poet.

The poet Donald Hall, sometime in his mid-seventies, said that he was no longer a poet. He had stopped writing poetry because the muse had just left him. (It returned at the end of his life). But although he apparently didn’t self-identify as a poet at that point, the fact of the matter is that he was a poet. Look it up.


Mark: "Like Julie, I often don't feel like a poet but I like telling myself that I am one. I've never introduced myself as one though, ha."


That’s the truth.
It would take some balls for me to actually introduce myself as a poet. But if I did… It just might be the truest thing I’ve ever said about myself:
“Hi. Nice to meet you. I’m Jim... Me? I’m a poet by nature but I teach, too. Pretty much the same thing when you think about it — which I do. Poets think about things like that.”

I would be deathly afraid that if I introduced myself as a poet. The person would likely respond, “Oh! A poet? Can I read you?” I’d have to say, “Well, I am a poet but have nothing to show for it.” I really have to get crackin’. : )

Most likely, since I'm not a very good one (I have no qualms with saying that and I don't think I'm being self-deprecating by saying so. I also have no qualms with saying that I think I still might become a good one, even great. I feel myself inching towards it. It all depends whether I’m immortal or not. Given enough time, I'm confident I could become a good poet. I've got potential : )), I am happy seeing myself as a poet by condition.


Mark: "Of course, I may be wrong about Woody Allen. Of course. But…"

Your phrasing brings to mind a comedy bit of Louis CK that is sacrilegiously, brilliantly funny: https://youtu.be/XLGzFQg_1xc (and yes, of course, Louis CK has some “baggage” to claim when it comes to taboo behavior…. Of course. Of course. But maybe… )

About Woody Allen: It’s safe to say that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. We will never know the truth. The courts have ruled that, according to the laws, he committed no crime. His lawyers won the case.

.