You should always get rid of anything and everything that isn't 100% necessary to communicate your idea. Do you *absolutely need* the poem to express your idea? If so, keep it. If not, get rid of it. Same with any other words you have in there. Then help obiwanobiwan do the same thing.

@Putin- but im logging off so PM me if you want that talk.

tendmote is right, but this is probably a total joke of a class where you can get away with what you have now. Especially since this must be your first assignment, it being August and all.

The TA will likely just be grateful if you go the whole paper without writing like it's a text message.

I'm not harassing you. I'm a polisci person I don't know anybody who calls himself a poet.

Well he said he writes poems, so I don't know what else you need to do to be a poet.

But it's a self-defining piece. You can write poems as a hobby but he's describing his identity as a writer as a poet.

I sense I have been Summoned

*does the wacky dance*

Also, I think anyone that calls themself a poet is one, as long as they have written something they call poetry too, I guess. Poet means lots of different things to different people, thanks to the nature of poetry itself

"But it's a self-defining piece. You can write poems as a hobby but he's describing his identity as a writer as a poet."


Well, then if someone just writing them as a "hobby" doesn't count--though I think Emily Dickinson would disagree with you there--then what makes him a poet?

Being published?
Being Poet Laureate?
Being able to muse about how he's seen the best minds of his generation destroyed by a nitpicking Internet Inquisition headed by a person who's blasted Mark Twain, Shakespeare, and George Orwell, just to name a few?

What counts as being a "poet" in Putinland, oh Lord and Master on High?

So what does one need to be a poet beyond writing poems, Putin33? Is the degree determinative?

When someone asks who how you define yourself, and the first thing you say is poet? Yeah I'd say you have to first and foremost do poetry.

Jesus Christ guys what is so difficult about this?

Being a poet =/= being a novelist.

THAT, yeah, I'd buy an argument that you'd need accomplishment first to call yourself that since...well...hard to fairly call yourself a novelist if you haven't actually written a novel, but instead of course have a GENIUS idea and maybe 3 pages of notes...from two years ago...but never mind that, when you get cracking, oh boy, watch out, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Toni Morrison!

But just "poet?"

You could write haikus at work (naughty, naughty) post them online...

And given that many of the West's best works of poetry had starts that were just as dubious, if not more so...yeah, sure, you can call yourself a poet.

Good luck getting people to count you as a GOOD poet, or getting anyone outside your friends to read it, just because the market for poetry's extremely difficult and you can probably count the number of modern, living poets most people know on one hand...

But, hey, as long as it doesn't interfere with work or life, why not? Write those poems if you like, take your shot and live that dream...or, do like the aforementioned Ms. Dickinson and just write them for yourself, largely, and who knows--maybe you'll leave behind hundreds of poems that get revered after your death.

...Just don't use weird dashes and the same goddamn meter for each and every fucking poem, OK? ;)

I'm not saying you can't say you are a poet in addition to a bunch of other things. But the defining characteristic of your writing when you primarily do other work doesn't make any sense.

This should be clear to everybody who isn't named Obiwan or Invictus.

"When someone asks who how you define yourself, and the first thing you say is poet? Yeah I'd say you have to first and foremost do poetry.

Jesus Christ guys what is so difficult about this?"

You seem to be the only one having difficulty here...sorry.

And again, gonna use her until you address her--Emily Fucking Dickinson.

Love or hate her, she's a pretty damn famous poet, and recognized as such, and she didn't do it as her job or even professionally, for the bulk of her work...and actually, to cite another female poet, Emily Bronte wrote her poems for herself as well, and had to be talked into publishing them by sisters Charlotte and Anne.

Gonna say they weren't poets because they didn't have that as their primary profession?

Your "definition" of what a poet is doesn't apply to ACTUAL SUCCESSFUL POETS.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. They are both poets. But the prompt asked how someone defines himself as a writer.

I am not saying anybody is not a poet. I am saying that to claim such a thing as how you define yourself means that that is what you primarily do.

I've done every single thing a painter has done, and I'm simply not a credible painter. Not good enough. (Not saying anyone else is bad at anything, but there's more to doing something than just doing it.)

Emily "Fucking" Dickinson was a good enough poet, apart from what her primary profession was.

"When someone asks who how you define yourself, and the first thing you say is poet? Yeah I'd say you have to first and foremost do poetry."

1. It's a bullshit assignment that we're already probably putting more thought into that he ever did.

2. It could easily be he has more passion for his poetry than the other writing he does. Therefore, when asked to define himself, he chose the genre that means the most to him. How hard is that to understand?

Obiwan is a brick wall. He sucks the life out of everything.

"2. It could easily be he has more passion for his poetry than the other writing he does. Therefore, when asked to define himself, he chose the genre that means the most to him. How hard is that to understand?"

Then he should pick a different major.

What an easy assignment.

"The prompt was : How do you see yourself as a writer? "

A: I don't

hehehehe

"But the defining characteristic of your writing when you primarily do other work doesn't make any sense."

Geoffrey Chaucer did primarily translations and other things BESIDES "The Canterbury Tales" and his other poetry...
Ditto my old friend Billy Shakespeare, he mostly wrote his plays, those were his money makers, not his poetry...
I already mentioned Emily Bronte...
And already mentioned Dickinson...
Johnny Keats mainly...well, mainly got TB and cheated on Fanny, but yeah, his "money makers" (extreme quotes there) were NOT his poetry...
Walt Whitman was a newspaper writer and (if I recall) actually had to self-publish "Leaves of Grass," so yeah, that wasn't his primary job title/characteristic, either...
None other than Edgar Allan "Once upon a midnight dreary" Poe himself was a freelancer, magazine writer, critic, and short story writer before he wrote "The Raven"...

Shall I name more?

Oh please, let me...

"I am saying that to claim such a thing as how you define yourself means that that is what you primarily do."


And *I* and (I think) Invictus are saying that's bullshit--

If you're a good poet...style yourself a poet!

...Avoid the scarf and NYC Hipster Look that sort of accompany that way too much nowadays, but yeah--

A ton of the BEST poets wouldn't fit your description, Putin, as poetry was NOT what they did primarily.

So what? You keep repeating yourself with irrelevant responses.

"Then he should pick a different major."

I accept your apology.

"Obiwan is a brick wall. He sucks the life out of everything."

You're criticizing someone choosing to style themselves a poet when you're so inept you mix metaphors like that?

Cute Invictus. You seem to throw that out there in every other thread. Spout some gibberish and declare victory, you never change.

"And *I* and (I think) Invictus are saying that's bullshit--"

I'm not reading your posts. They are incomprehensible. If we agree, good.

"Spout some gibberish and declare victory, you never change."

Gibberish? I don't know how I could be more concise. Everything's gotta be something with you.

"So what? You keep repeating yourself with irrelevant responses."

SO, a TON of poets don't fit your asinine parameters, Putin...

A NORMAL person would look at that and say "Hm, all those examples that don't fit with my definition, perhaps there's a flaw there..."

But nope!

With Putin, it's the WORLD that's wrong and he that's right, never the other way around.

They're not irrelevant examples when they clash with your definition, Putin...

Or would you really say "You have to fly in order to be a bird" and still hold that after I pointed out the dodo, ostrich, and penguin?