Twitter Party: The Poetry Home Repair Manual

I have a theory about poets and poetry, and it is this: there are only four poets in the United States who make a living by writing poetry. One of them is Billy Collins. I’m not sure who the other three are. But I know they must be out there. Somewhere.

At our recent poetry jam on Twitter, the very first prompt spoke to my theory: “You’ll never be able to make a living writing poems.” It’s a line from The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets by Ted Kooser, former U.S. Poet Laureate and author of some wonderful collections of poetry. (And if you wonder if he is one of the other three poets making a living from writing poems, you should know he retired from an insurance company in Nebraska, where he spent most of his adult working life.)

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph by Peter Griffin via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.