# Has anyone ever made a living from poetry alone? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 31, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696 "2013-08-31T22:11:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/21 "2013-09-01T15:40:43Z")
> [@EmilyG](#): > > It seems that even the most successful poets also do professional activities other than writing poetry - teaching, for example, or writing novels/plays/other literature in addition to poetry. So, in all of history, has any poet ever made their living only from poetry? I think you need to clarify if you mean having never done anything else, serially, or having never done anything else, concurrently. If the former, that’s a pretty high bar. Almost everyone had some schlock job they did as a youth that was unrelated to their eventual career. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/22 "2013-09-01T16:51:22Z")
[Ewan McTeagle](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W9p_NFm6qk)? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/23 "2013-09-01T17:26:44Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > But the OP is asking whether anyone has ever made a living from poetry _alone_, without indulging in other professional activities. Shakespeare was a working actor for most of his professional life, as well as a businessman, and it’s largely through the latter activity that he made his money. The tradition holds that Shakespeare was not a very good actor, and his role in the company soon shifted to that of writer, with perhaps some occasional small parts. I believe there is a legend that he played the ghost in Hamlet. AFAIK that is the only part traditionally associated with him as actor. As for being a business man, well yes, but as you yourself noted, he was a business man making his money primarily by exploiting his own work. In some sense, every writer who makes money off their work is also a businessman. I will say that it seems very likely that as well as being his company’s writer, Shakespeare probably filled much of the function of what we would now call the director of his plays. Whether that rules him out of the OP’s intended criteria, I cannot say. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/24 "2013-09-01T17:30:08Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > [Lyn Lifshin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyn_Lifshin) today makes her income from poetry; her husband worked at GE when she was starting out, but with a combination of selling her chapbooks and teaching poetry, she supports herself. It helps that she is incredibly prolific and sends her poems everywhere; there are very few literary magazines that haven’t published her work. From your link: > [@](#): > > When she left SUNY, she began teaching creative writing workshops at various public venues such as libraries as well as at her home in Niskayuna, NY. Eventually, she began earning a living primarily from workshops, readings, and visiting faculty positions. The OP may have left a good deal of room for interpretation, but one thing that was explicitly ruled out was making a living primarily from teaching. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/25 "2013-09-01T19:28:52Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > The tradition holds that Shakespeare was not a very good actor, and his role in the company soon shifted to that of writer, with perhaps some occasional small parts. I believe there is a legend that he played the ghost in Hamlet. AFAIK that is the only part traditionally associated with him as actor. As for being a business man, well yes, but as you yourself noted, he was a business man making his money primarily by exploiting his own work. In some sense, every writer who makes money off their work is also a businessman. > > I will say that it seems very likely that as well as being his company’s writer, Shakespeare probably filled much of the function of what we would now call the director of his plays. Whether that rules him out of the OP’s intended criteria, I cannot say. “The tradition” doesn’t reflect the documentary evidence, then. You’re correct that we don’t know for sure which parts Shakespeare played (although we don’t know this for _most_ actors of the period, apart from a few superstars like Burbage, whose eulogy mentions several characters that he played. Detailed cast lists only rarely appear in printed plays; everything else is guesswork.) However, Shakespeare is listed as one of the “principal tragedians” in the cast list for Ben Jonson’s _Sejanus_, and he’s at the head of the list of “principal comedians” printed with Jonson’s _Every Man In His Humour_. These plays were first performed in 1603 and 1598, respectively, well after Shakespeare was an established playwright. _Sejanus_ is a particularly complicated and sprawling Roman history play with over thirty characters; Shakespeare is one of only eight actors who makes the cut as one of the leads. We’ve got references to him as an actor well into the first decade of the seventeenth century. He doesn’t seem to have given up the day job until quite late in his career – unlike, say, Jonson, who gave up acting as soon as he could support himself as a writer. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/26 "2013-09-01T20:06:22Z")
(BTW, this part is a total hijack, but apparently I just can’t stop myself being nerdy about Shakespeare.) There’s also a tradition that Shakespeare played Adam in _As You Like It_, but like the Hamlet’s Ghost rumor, it doesn’t surface until the eighteenth century. (The Adam story is supposed to have come down to us via one of Shakespeare’s Stratford relatives, possibly his nephew Thomas, who saw him perform as a child. This isn’t impossible, but we don’t have a reliable provenance for it either.) At any rate, I suspect both of these traditions have more to do with the sort of parts eighteenth-century fans _wanted_ Shakespeare to have played – old men with unimpeachable virtue, plenty of _gravitas_, and very little stage time – than the ones he actually _did_ play. It would be pretty funny if Shakespeare actually preferred wildly undignified roles (Juliet’s Nurse? Sir Toby Belch? the bear?), but I doubt we’ll ever know. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/27 "2013-09-01T20:57:50Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > … > > Delmore Schwartz was fiercely proud that he lived solely off his poetry, but he was a hopeless alcoholic who traded poetry for liquor and lived one step above homelessness. I remember being taught in school that Edgar Allan Poe was a general loser at life. His college ambitions got him nowhere - he was expelled from West Point, then later decided to give college another chance - he got through one year at UVa until he got discouraged and quit, and spent most of his life abusing narcotics. In the end, he was found delirious (drunk? high?) on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, he was so far gone that doctors couldn’t save him. RIP. He wasn’t just a poet, though, but was also keen on the short story - not only the horror/gothic stuff he is stereotypically associated with but also detective stories and SF, both of which were fairly new in his day. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/28 "2013-09-01T21:15:33Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > From your link: > The OP may have left a good deal of room for interpretation, but one thing that was explicitly ruled out was making a living primarily from teaching. And there have been a large number of writers who were also teachers of some sort - the intellectual development necessary to teach seems to be pretty similar to what produces great writers. Obvious examples I can come up with quickly : Lewis Carroll (math professor), J. R. R. Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/29 "2013-09-02T11:06:25Z")
T. S. Eliot, accoring to ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen in **Catch 22**. (quote #2 on [this page](http://www.shmoop.com/catch-22/philosophical-viewpoints-cynicism-chance-quotes.html)) ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/30 "2013-09-02T22:37:06Z")
[Robert W. Service](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Service) did more than write poetry, but could easily have lived off the money he made from it. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/31 "2013-09-03T01:08:30Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > And there have been a large number of writers who were also teachers of some sort - the intellectual development necessary to teach seems to be pretty similar to what produces great writers. Obvious examples I can come up with quickly : Lewis Carroll (math professor), J. R. R. Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis. FWIW in the case of all three of these men, they started out in academia and only produced the works for which they are generally famous as a sort of sideline or hobby. Also, all three did write poetry and perhaps aspired to being known as Poets; but Carroll’s and Tolkien’s best known poetry is widely read thanks to it being embedded in their popular prose works. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/32 "2013-09-03T01:18:30Z")
Charles Bukowski. Of course, he was also an author and painter. And he did live readings until he had enough money to stop doing them. I hope I’m not putting words into his mouth, but I think he considered himself a poet foremost. Well, I’m sure I’m not putting words in his mouth if I said he considered himself a drunk foremost. He lived off of his work later in life, and barely lived doing shit jobs earlier in life. Buk on poetry: [bukowski on poetry - YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esnlk3z0Ikg) ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/33 "2013-09-03T01:24:24Z")
Clips from Bukowski readings [Charles Bukowski - One Tough Mother Preview - YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR_IXOQB9A4) ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/34 "2013-09-03T21:31:39Z")
Doctor Seuss? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/35 "2013-09-03T21:37:48Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Doctor Seuss? I think you’d have to disqualify him, as he was also an artist. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/36 "2013-09-03T23:10:57Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Clips from Bukowski readings [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR\_IXOQB9A4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR_IXOQB9A4) Thanks! That was cool. Off to Amazon to see if that DVD is available. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/37 "2013-09-04T03:51:27Z")
Probably the same income disparity as today’s superstars compared with has-beens, also-rans, and the talented-but-never-to-be-discovered guys out there. ---
**Author:** ![gunchris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@gunchris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gunchris)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/38 "2013-09-04T04:25:35Z")
I was gonna say Hank Chinaski but he wrote stories too. “poets don’t drive cars” Bob Dylan. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/39 "2013-09-04T05:22:38Z")
> [@gunchris](#): > > I was gonna say Hank Chinaski but he wrote stories too. and a [screenplay](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcSlmdoHzLc) ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696/40 "2013-09-04T07:16:31Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Even so, the normal definitions of “poet” makes it a separate category from “lyricist”. It’s hard to think of any real world setting in which the two are lumped together. Oh, I don’t know. I have an intense dislike for the [O Star](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvVgxK872EQ) part of Frostiana. Or at least the soprano parts… Nothing against Frost, it is the composer I hate actually. That is a seriously annoying bit of music. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-made-a-living-from-poetry-alone/667696.md?page=3)