Kim Addonizio recently wrote a How To Succeed In Po-Biz letter, which was posted on Poetry Daily last week.  I found it very amusing, if cynical, because of course it hit home.  Po-biz is a hard, hard road.  Why would anyone choose to be a poet?  Seriously.  What am I thinking?  It would be so much easier just to throw in the towel.  To not have to deal with all the rejections, and frustration, the lack of control, the anxiety, the egos, the poverty, etc.  If only I could make myself stop writing and submitting.  Alas, I am somehow addicted.  Obviously I’m, in some way, getting more out of it than I’m sacrificing.  It would be nice, though, not to get that look from people at parties who ask what I do.  “I’m a poet” generally results in people reacting as though I’m either insane or deluded.  Perhaps a little of both is necessary to the calling, eh?

Coming soon: the rest of the Academy of American Poets forum weekend in New York.