To be classed as a Poet, do you need published works, a Degree or other such thing?

You need to work at writing poetry.

I am not a painter, I am a poet.

Why? I think I would rather be

a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg

is starting a painting. I drop in.

"Sit down and have a drink" he

says. I drink; we drink. I look

up. "You have SARDINES in it."

"Yes, it needed something there."

"Oh." I go and the days go by

and I drop in again. The painting

is going on, and I go, and the days

go by. I drop in. The painting is

finished. "Where's SARDINES?"

All that's left is just

letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of

a color: orange. I write a line

about orange. Pretty soon it is a

whole page of words, not lines.

Then another page. There should be

so much more, not of orange, of

words, of how terrible orange is

and life. Days go by. It is even in

prose, I am a real poet. My poem

is finished and I haven't mentioned

orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call

it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery

I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

- Why I Am Not a Painter, Frank O'Hara.

Yes probably, if you don't have published poetry your not a poet, Poets have normally studied English and have P H D;s in Language Degree's Lecturer in universities But sometimes any Tom Dick or Harry could say ''I am a poet'' ...If you are just Born to be Poetic .. :)

No you just have to believe that you are and forget why others say you are not.

Yes u do!

;)

No.