[James Brancheau]

Yeah, Shaun, ha, there is a bias against those of us who have studied it, and teach literature. Like we're not nuts too.

[Tim McGrath]

RC, yes, she can bring tears to my eyes--"eyes that had not watered 70 years." (J.C. Ransom)

Julie, Roger, Rick, Shaun, I think the word professional is overused, although I doubt that most people here would consider themselves amateurs, nor should they.

It's embarrassing when someone refers to himself as an artist or a poet.

Randall Jarrell said this: "A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times; a dozen or two dozen times and he is great."

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

Originally Posted by Tim McGrath

It's embarrassing when someone refers to himself as an artist or a poet.

Total tosh. Where do you get it from?

Duncan

[Tim McGrath]

From Randall Jarrell's definition, a poet is one who, if he's lucky, occasionally has a poem happen to him. This removes agency from the so-called poet and returns it its rightful owner, the muse. As somebody else once said, "To have once been visited by the muse is to be forever haunted by it."

[Roger Slater]

Would you really find it "embarrassing" if, for example, you had met Theodore Roethke and asked what he did, and he answered, "I'm a poet"? Would Louise Gluck be a posturing embarrassment if she claimed, during her Nobel acceptance speech, that she was a poet?

Tim, I suppose there are people you might hang out with who would laugh at you for saying you're a poet. Perhaps your co-workers who have a different mindset? I used to feel the same way, hiding my poetry writing from my office colleagues. But I grew up and just accepted that writing poetry is part of what defines me and nothing to be ashamed of.

[Tim McGrath]

Louise Gluck is indeed a "posturing embarrassment." For the record, no one was ever more deserving than Bob Dylan. At his insurance company, no one knew that Wallace Stevens was a poet on the side.

[John Riley]

The articles are asking what has the university done to poetry and music? What was lost when literary writing means you do a masters degree and hopefully land a job turning out more poets? How much does it effect or diminish the chances of something new? I know many people here want something old, but would the romantic movement have started at Eastern Carolina University or Tiny College America? People here may make their living in that system. That is what you’re supposed to do. To ask what is lost by turning any art into an academic field is the question a d it’s a legitimate one.

[John Riley]

I read, study and admire Louise Gluck’s poetry.

[Nick McRae]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

Tim, I suppose there are people you might hang out with who would laugh at you for saying you're a poet. Perhaps your co-workers who have a different mindset? I used to feel the same way, hiding my poetry writing from my office colleagues. But I grew up and just accepted that writing poetry is part of what defines me and nothing to be ashamed of.

I'm more likely to describe myself as a writer than a poet, not because of embarrassment, but because 'poet' is a bit showy.

If you're a writer you're like everyone else. But poetry implies strong writing skill, and intellect.

I wonder if there is a gender line here, too. Men are typically expected to be humble. For women, the title usually suits a bit better.

[Roger Slater]

That's where we differ. I don't think the term "poet" is boastful. If a person lives a life in which writing poetry is a major theme, that person is a poet. Maybe a bad poet, maybe a good one, but a poet either way. It's not a title conferred upon a person. It's a description of them, a fact about them. How can we know the dancer from the dance?