Today is
Poetry at Work Day 2018.
Most poets
have day jobs. They must. Very few poets, no matter how good they are, no
matter how much their words may leave us struck with wonder, can make a living solely
by writing poetry.
Walt Whitman, for
example, struggled financially for most of his life. He was a printer, a teacher,
a journalist, a newspaper publisher, and a clerk in the Department of Interior
in Washington. Maya
Angelou was a dancer, a songwriter, a singer, a historian, a civil rights
activist, a producer, and a director. Wallace Stevens
and Edgar Lee
Masters were both attorneys. William
Carlos Williams was a doctor. Marianne Moore
was a teacher and editor. T.S. Eliot was a
banker and an editor. Robert
Frost was a teacher, cobbler, and editor.
To
continue reading, please see my post today at TweetspeakPoetry.
Poster photograph by Sonia Joie. Used with permission.
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