good gathering of responses culled by Frank Sherlock re: poets and the processes of composition, found via Joseph Massey and Gary Sullivan.

my fave is Kevin Killian, an established poet by my standards, who gets the writing juices flowing by taking a class on lyric poetry taught by a younger poet at a non-profit learning center. scroll down to find it. what's so appealing is the eagerness, and yeah humility, that Killian displays. I agree we are never to old to learn things new. and relearn.

I think about going back to school to get my PhD. in something. not to become a career academic, not all poets are meant, or should, teach school. I firmly believe poetry is better served by poets who make their livings in all manner of jobs. but for the hell of it, to recharge perhaps, and to serve that small petty thing: my ego.

why the hell not. I guess. tho circumstances now are against the time and moolah it takes to earn another post-graduate degree. that is something else that poets don't talk about: the fricking big bucks it takes to go to school. what does it cost to get an MFA from Columbia anyway? about a 100 grand? whatever the cost of tuition and books and housing and food and shit, that is a buttload of dinero to fork over for a degree that won't pay you back, at all, in the form of a great paying career.

but I like Killian's way toward writing anew, by paying a cheap tuition for a class at a non-profit taught by a younger poet, for the hell of poetry.