Get the latest tech news

Poets' Odd Jobs

“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. Read this list of famous poets and their odd or unique jobs.

It was a dangerous job, requiring him to “stand over going machinery on the top step of a stepladder with nothing to hold on to or brace a shin against and unsling an arc lamp from the ceiling for repairs,” as he said. O’Hara became the subject of numerous portraits by New York School painters, including Nell Blaine, Grace Hartigan, Larry Rivers, and Jane Freilicher. She modeled with the Hart Agency of Boston and also held jobs as a lingerie salesperson and a clerk at the Hathaway House bookstore in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in the early 1950s.

Get the Android app