Odd Jobs

June 4, 2024 12:12 PM

“There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money either,” Robert Graves famously said. While there have certainly been numerous poets throughout history who have been “professional poets” (poets supported by patrons or sponsors in classical times or poets whose main income comes from their books, readings, etc., in more contemporary times), still larger is the number of poets who had surprising or unorthodox occupations outside of their literary careers...
posted by jim in austin (36 comments total)

Bukowski missed his true calling as a postal mass shooter by just a few decades.
posted by rhizome at 12:26 PM on June 4 [8 favorites]

This is excellent & inspiring & hope-inducing & a fine complement to clavdivs' recent & glorious Wallace Stevens post
posted by chavenet at 12:27 PM on June 4 [4 favorites]

Forward

"Since poems should be self-explanatory I refrain from more forward than this: that I write poems for poets, and satires or grotesque for wits. For people in general I write prose, and am content that they should be unaware that I do anything else. To write poems for other than poets is wasteful. The moral of the Scilly Islanders who earned a precarious livelihood by taking in another's washing is that they never upset their carefully balanced Island economy by trying to hone in to the laundry trade of the mainland; and that nowhere in the Western hemisphere was washing done so well.

Robert Graves, Galmpton- -Brixham,
S. Devon.
1945.(forward to 'Poems', 1938-1945.)
posted by clavdivs at 12:32 PM on June 4 [6 favorites]

I try to imagine Steven's writing copy for advertising within the firm and trying to edit "The Buck has your back"
posted by clavdivs at 12:35 PM on June 4 [3 favorites]

In fact, when a fellow insurance man of Hartford learned of Stevens’s literary second life, he exclaimed: “What?! Wally a poet?”

A. M. Juster is an award-winning poet and was Poetry Editor of First Things and Plough Quarterly. Michael James Astrue is an American lawyer who served as commissioner of the Social Security Administration from 2007 to 2013.

That the two men shared more than just the letters of their names was not widely known until the publication of a 2010 profile: "Michael J. Astrue is the best poet ever to hold a truly major appointed position in the American government. And A.M. Juster is the best senior civil servant of whom American poetry can boast."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:48 PM on June 4 [5 favorites]

"Michael J. Astrue is the best poet ever to hold a truly major appointed position in the American government. And A.M. Juster is the best senior civil servant of whom American poetry can boast."

That is ... wild.
posted by chavenet at 1:01 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]

When Robert Frost was asked to explain a poem, he said, "You want me to repeat it with worser words?"
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 1:02 PM on June 4 [20 favorites]

Along these lines, I believe Philip Glass worked as a plumber and a taxi driver.
posted by wittgenstein at 1:02 PM on June 4 [7 favorites]

When I went to work in tall buildings, I thought every day of Wallace Stevens and how he'd managed to balance writing and law, so why shouldn't I? Well, I don't know much about him, but I assume he either had a wife doing the scutwork or he didn't have undiagnosed AuDHD clamped onto his leg like a toddler.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:11 PM on June 4 [7 favorites]

(Addendum: I understand Klaus Nomi was a gifted pastry chef, and his lime tarts were truly special.)
posted by Countess Elena at 1:12 PM on June 4 [4 favorites]

(Addendum: I understand Klaus Nomi was a gifted pastry chef, and his lime tarts were truly special.)

Somehow I suspect this line is going to stick in my mind forever. I have no idea why, but wow, my brain keeps latching onto it.
posted by hippybear at 1:18 PM on June 4 [4 favorites]

Vonnegut sold Swedish 'spaceships' [KVLM, pdf]. Suppose more prose? So it goes
posted by HearHere at 1:51 PM on June 4 [2 favorites]

“You want me to repeat it with worser words?"

Yes, actually.
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:55 PM on June 4 [2 favorites]

In the nineteenth century, poetry in volume form was not a hot market--Tennyson was one of the very few poets who could command strong sales--and since newspaper and periodical publication didn't pay much unless you were already a star or had independent means, there was a lot of scrambling going on. (The poet-protagonist of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh grouses about having to churn out book reviews.) So, William Wordsworth was also a tax collector--in his case, after he had achieved some reputation as a poet. As it was really supposed to be a sinecure of sorts, some of his contemporaries were a little startled that he took the job seriously. And Matthew Arnold kept the lights on as a school inspector (which he also took extremely seriously).
posted by thomas j wise at 1:57 PM on June 4 [5 favorites]

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Day-Jobs
posted by pracowity at 2:13 PM on June 4 [2 favorites]

it was really supposed to be a sinecure of sorts, some of his contemporaries were a little startled that he took the job seriously
Issac Newton made change [royal mint museum]
posted by HearHere at 2:22 PM on June 4 [3 favorites]

Thomas Lynch. essayist, poet, funeral director.
posted by clavdivs at 2:25 PM on June 4 [6 favorites]

Philip Whalen, Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder all worked as US Forest Service fire watchers in the North Cascade Range in Washington in the 1950s - I loved John Suiter's '03 group biography focusing on that, Poets on the Peaks.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:50 PM on June 4 [5 favorites]

“There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money either,” Robert Graves famously said.

Counterpoint:

"Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly.

That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money – that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it… high in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl […].
posted by chavenet at 2:50 PM on June 4 [7 favorites]

I love this story from Philip Glass, as mentioned by wittgenstein, which I was just discussing with a friend:

"While working, I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. ‘But you’re Philip Glass! What are you doing here?’ It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him I would soon be finished. ‘But you are an artist,’ he protested. I explained that I was an artist but that I was sometimes a plumber as well and that he should go away and let me finish."
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:58 PM on June 4 [19 favorites]

I always figured Phil Glass for a bartender
posted by chavenet at 3:41 PM on June 4 [9 favorites]

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a letter of recommendation for Walt Whitman for a position in the Treasury Department. He described Whitman as a man of "strong original genius, combining, with marked eccentricities, great powers & valuable traits of character". I heard a talk by David Ferriero, National Archivist from 2009-2022, in which he said that this was the document he asked to see on his first day in office.
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 4:01 PM on June 4 [6 favorites]

“There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money either,” Robert Graves famously said.

Hip Hop would like to have a word with you, old man.
posted by philip-random at 4:09 PM on June 4 [3 favorites]

I always figured Phil Glass for a bartender

I guess he preferred being a plumber because he liked the hours and was good at changing parts.
posted by TwoWordReview at 4:35 PM on June 4 [11 favorites]

When Philip Glass was 19, he spent five months working as a crane operator in a Baltimore steel mill. His mind built soundscapes around the repetitive sounds and rhythms of industry.
posted by Pallas Athena at 4:50 PM on June 4 [5 favorites]

Ok do this post but do it for people in hardcore bands.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:34 PM on June 4 [5 favorites]

Charles Ives, a very innovative American composer, before everybody else in my opinion, was an insurance guy in NYC. One of his maxims regarding doing art was don’t do it for the money, as that will corrupt your art as you then have to pander to the unwashed. You should make the art you want to make. Thanks to having a job, that’s what he did.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:44 PM on June 4 [4 favorites]

“There’s a place for those who love their poetry. It’s across from the sign that says ‘Pros Only’”- TMBG
posted by ducky l'orange at 5:48 PM on June 4 [5 favorites]

Mexico, and other Latin American countries, but mostly Mexico, used to, and some still do, give poets and writers diplomatic jobs all over the world, mostly in Paris and the grand South American capitals.

Turns out poets and writers are very good at observing and writing about it.

People used to say that the writing (not written, writing) portion of the exam to join the Servicio Exterior Mexicano was the hardest anywhere.

Maybe the US could try this, it could be good both for diplomacy and literature.

Top of my head I can remember these Diplomats, you may recognize a few: Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, Ruben Darío, Amado Nervo, Carlos Fuentes, Alfonso Reyes.
posted by Dr. Curare at 6:04 PM on June 4 [11 favorites]

Homer: professional assassin.

"Nobody suspects the blind man. Plenty of downtime for writing."
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:33 AM on June 5 [1 favorite]

and this is why it should be possible to make a respectable living off the dole.

(really it’s not though. the real reason it should be possible to make a respectable living off the dole is because it is our birthright. the explosion in artistic production is just a nice side-benefit of people getting our birthright)
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:35 AM on June 5 [1 favorite]

It's too bad more poets weren't copyeditors because they sure are in need of one at poets.org
posted by hairless ape at 9:23 AM on June 5

I was expecting a lot more cattle rustlers, deep sea demolition experts, thorax surgeons, and politicians than office workers and lower class service/trade jobs.

Though arc lamp trimmer over a factory full of running pre OSHA machinery is definitely a good one.

That fire watch tower ranger was the occupation of several poets is no surprise at all.

I wonder if there are any successful poets who's day job is tree planter. It's a fairly mindless task that doesn't have you operating dangerous machinery and you have both nature and human exploitation to draw on for inspiration.
posted by Mitheral at 9:31 AM on June 5 [1 favorite]

Robinson Jeffers comes close.
posted by clavdivs at 9:40 AM on June 5 [1 favorite]

Delmore Schwartz has a pretty hilarious, but totally made up, anecdote about Wallace Stevens which is related in his biography. In it he claims to have gone to the Hartford insurance company and got to talking to one of the other lawyers there. "I bet you didn't know that your colleague Wallace Stevens is one of the foremost working poets in America." The other guy replies "Stevens? Worst lawyer I've ever met! We would have fired him long ago if not for his poetry!"
posted by whir at 8:45 PM on June 5

Robinson Jeffers comes close.

I have love in my heart for Robinson Jeffers, but I'm not sure you can count rolling boulders out of the sea to build a house as a profession, exactly.
posted by whir at 8:49 PM on June 5