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WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH

When is the last time you heard someone described as a "POET"? Does that career path even exist any longer?

Posted - May 24, 2019
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  • 6023
    Huh ... I checked, and the US has an official Poet Laureate Consultant position with the Library of Congress:

    https://www.loc.gov/poetry/laureate.html
      May 24, 2019 10:38 AM MDT
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  • 46117
    LOL.  Who appoints the position?  Or do you send in an application with a resume'?

    Do you appear on FOX NEWS and loudly expound upon how brilliant a poet Trump is?  How you will write a letter saying he deserves the Nobel and Pulitzer for better words than Shakespeare?   

    How do they get that cushy job.   I guess I should read this.


     

    Tracy K. Smith, Current Poet Laureate
    The Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress

    Tracy K. Smith (Photo Credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths)Tracy K. Smith, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2017- 
    Photo credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths

    Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed Tracy K. Smith as the Library’s 22nd Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry on June 14, 2017, and reappointed her to a second term on March 22, 2018.

    Tracy K. Smith was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1972, and raised in Fairfield, California. She is the author of four books of poetry, including Wade in the Water (2018); Life on Mars (2011), winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Duende (2007), winner of the 2006 James Laughlin Award and the 2008 Essence Literary Award; and The Body’s Question (2003), winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Smith is also the author of a memoir, Ordinary Light (2015), a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Nonfiction and selected as a Notable Book by The New York Times and The Washington Post.

    This post was edited by WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH at May 24, 2019 12:49 PM MDT
      May 24, 2019 12:48 PM MDT
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  • 14795
    Each week in England we have Poet's day on every Friday of each week for the all of working classes....
    Its an Acronym for "Piss of Early Tomorrow's,Saturday" :) 
      May 24, 2019 11:53 AM MDT
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  • 6023
    I forgot ... Astoria, Oregon has the Fisher Poets Gathering

    "A celebration of the commercial fishing industry in poetry, prose and song, the FisherPoets Gathering has attracted fisherpoets and their many fans to Astoria, Oregon the last weekend of February since 1998. 

    Originally conceived as a modest cultural reunion for far-flung friends in the commercial fishing fleet, the FisherPoets Gathering now attracts nearly a hundred poets, songwriters and storytellers from both the west and east coasts’ commercial fishing communities. They gather in Astoria’s pubs, restaurants and galleries to read for each other and for the hundreds of fisherpoetry fans who come to hear the authentic, creative voices of deckhands and skippers, cannery workers and shipwrights, young greenhorns and old timers, strong women and good-looking men."

    https://www.fisherpoets.org/
      May 24, 2019 1:12 PM MDT
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  • 10639
    People call me a poet all the time.  I wish I could make a career out of it, but it doesn't pay.
      May 24, 2019 1:43 PM MDT
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  • 46117
    I mean how do you charge?  I guess songwriters might be a way to do this.  Or advertising of sorts.  It's a tough road for a career path that is for sure.  It's like making a career as a ventriloquist.  It's a hard road to travel and be successful at.  
      May 24, 2019 1:50 PM MDT
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  • 17596
    I have never been called a poetess.
      May 24, 2019 2:35 PM MDT
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  • 6098
    They are the people who write all the poetry.  There are many of them and my husband and I go their readings sometimes.  Would guess very few of them are in it as a career - that is to make money. Many of them make a little something for some readings more as performers than poets. 
      May 24, 2019 8:11 PM MDT
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  • My father is a retired professor of English, and has many poet friends. I remember one of them, an elderly cheerful Gujarati gentleman,  who introduced himself to me when I was about 22 saying:
    "I'm a poet.
    Did you know it?
    I don't show it." This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at June 2, 2019 7:40 AM MDT
      May 29, 2019 5:26 PM MDT
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