What Is a Poet, Anyhow?

THE question arises because of the over-abundance. There is, next door to each of us, a lady who, being well placed in life, well fed, well groomed, and well beloved, must add to these comfortable adjectives the embarrassing noun of ‘poet.’ There are hundreds like her, who apparently do not realize what an uncomfortable noun it is — always necessitating explanations or blushes at one’s effrontery to the gods.

You and I, filled with awe before the muse, may venture that these ladies who are not so filled are not poets, but we will, in conspicuous cases, be proved mistaken. Many eventually write stuff that ‘comes off.’ So do unprepossessing individuals we had suspected of posing in order to cover their lack of the lady-next-door’s amiable characteristics.

Now a poet is obviously a maker of poetry, and little else can be said. But poetry has not been adequately defined. There is no common yardstick. Because of a tendency to look back to large figures as examples, the term ‘poet’ carries connotations of remoteness and excellence. This makes it awkward to deal with poets in the flesh, though they, poor souls, must live, go about, and learn their art in the flesh.

We are caught in a dilemma of words. Who with any respect for poetry is not amused or disgusted with writers of indifferent verse who call themselves poets or ask friends to do it for them? There are now hundreds, thousands of these. Every college has its group; every city, suburb, and nearly every small town. Poetry societies contain so much mediocrity that many people join them only for diplomatic reasons or to make fun of the meetings.

It has even become necessary when speaking of a poet of parts to call him ‘a real poet,’ a ‘recognized poet,’ and so forth. This is ludicrous. Taste demands greater modesty or more careful definition. Yet the difficulties in the matter of modesty almost justify the terrible ubiquity of ‘poets.’

First, poetry is a commodity. Take for instance Poetry, the oldest magazine of verse. It has bought and published the work of some thousand writers. It rejects the work of twice that many every month. It needs a name for the goods in which it deals and another for the producer of those goods — even when the deal is a rejection. The same is true of scores of younger poetry-magazines and of every publication that prints verse. Both parties to the transaction must have terms designating producer and wares.

And what word can be used of any object, without insult or ridicule, except the name of the thing for which it is intended? ‘Columnist’ is limited to writers of newspaper verse, ‘writer’ is too general, ‘contributor’ does not always apply. To call anything verse that is not intended for prose is hardly more accurate than to call it poetry. Verse is the very stuff of poetry, and to achieve it, as distinguished from doggerel or prose, is half the battle. But even were the term ‘verse’ agreed on, there would still be no name for its producers. ‘Verse-writers’ is long and unphonetic; ‘versifiers’ is ridiculous. ‘Rhymers’ lays emphasis on a matter often absent. ‘Would-be poets,’ ‘selfstyled’ poets, are epithets used only by those who love their enemies enough to want more.

Limitations of language make it necessary to take the halo off the word ‘poet’ and put it to work with such self-respecting words as ‘doctor,’ ‘lawyer,’ ‘plumber’ — terms designating occupations, not excellence. ‘Doctor’ has historic dignity, but is used for both able and poor doctors, even for those who are not practising, having, let us say, killed all their patients. ‘Poet’ may be used as logically for the bard who has killed his readers.

But the professions and trades have the safeguard of defined formal qualifications, and there is no way of standardizing the education of a poet. The Meistersingers were admitted to the guild by examination, but that would be too artificial now. Neither is length of apprenticeship a criterion. Individual variation is too great. For a time it is enough for a student-poet to say he is ‘trying to write,’ but after he has started to publish he needs a noun to stand for himself in this endeavor. Nor does publication signify ripe ability. Emily Dickinson did not publish at all during her lifetime, though she tried once to place work in the Atlantic Monthly and was, in all kindness, discouraged. On the other hand much is published which signifies little except that the writer is sufficiently interested in his work to seek the advantages of an audience, and to persevere until he succeeds — somewhere.

Here indeed is a point: writing for publication is the embryo poet’s chief means of educating himself. When his work stands in type beside other men’s, he may, if ever, see it somewhat as others do. Also he needs the comments from editors and readers. He must be a poet in the commercial sense to become a poet in the artistic sense. A writer, as Oscar Wilde said in speaking of George Moore, conducts his education in public. It is hard on the public and harder on writers, but ninetynine out of a hundred will not develop any other way. Writing in secret is dangerously clandestine conduct. Man is social and garrulous — or he loses perspective. Nor are personal friends to be trusted for literary perspective.

In conducting his very public education — through publishing and talking to others in his craft — how can the man who seeks to know and overcome his poetic limitations manage at all without referring to himself as poet? He cannot call himself by an epithet. Seriousness is needed for his development. A student once handed Mary Augusta Jordan some manuscripts entitled ‘Rhymes and Verses,’ and that justly famous teacher said, ‘Don’t disparage your work. Take it seriously. Call it poetry, and write poetry.’

A belittled soul cannot be expected to stretch to the high magic.

So, within the brotherhood, a poet is known not by his work but by his intention, and it is permissible to miss the paradox in the statement, ‘His poetry is very bad.’

But on one point let us be firm: a poet is a poet only among poets and in literary transactions. Let it forever be bad form to introduce a human being as a poet when he should be introduced as a friend. In honoring a poet we too often insult a man. Likely enough he can earn his own dinner, though possibly not by his pen. Likely enough he has friends who can share it with him without treating him as a biological curiosity or a paid entertainer. A poet should be off duty at a party. When this is not the expectation the engagement should be frankly professional and remunerated. One does not invite the doctor to dinner to diagnose the guests’ rashes.

Neither should a poet be expected to contribute gratuitous entertainment, even for clubs and causes, or to contribute to magazines that cannot pay him because they lack the circulation which alone might make them worth his while. There is room for club, magazine, or newspaper column that is a practice-laboratory for poets who can command no other audience — but in this case it is the poet who comes seeking. The other merely announces its policies.

As a final hint: most poets have another calling with which to confront the census man. Poetic activity can be treated as a private hobby and revealed only by chance or to others of like hobby. There is no excuse for flaunting the poetic ego in society. And if only among poets the poet walks revealed, surely he may make no bones about it.