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Text 1
The poet Audre Lorde once claimed that poetry is the most inexpensive of art forms to practice. While people who pursue other art forms—painting, architecture, theater—require large blocks of uninterrupted time as well as money to complete their work, poets can write, as Lorde said, "between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper." So poets can practice their art even if they must earn their living in another way.
Text 2
Any assessment of the state of contemporary poetry must reckon with the professionalization of the field. While it is possible in theory for anyone to publish in Virginia Quarterly Review, Kenyon Review, or a similar major poetry outlet, many people who do so have professional training in poetry and extensive practice writing it, which requires time not often available to those who must also work full-time jobs. Thus, financial security indirectly affects which people become poets.
The poet Audre Lorde once claimed that poetry is the most inexpensive of art forms to practice. While people who pursue other art forms—painting, architecture, theater—require large blocks of uninterrupted time as well as money to complete their work, poets can write, as Lorde said, "between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper." So poets can practice their art even if they must earn their living in another way.
Text 2
Any assessment of the state of contemporary poetry must reckon with the professionalization of the field. While it is possible in theory for anyone to publish in Virginia Quarterly Review, Kenyon Review, or a similar major poetry outlet, many people who do so have professional training in poetry and extensive practice writing it, which requires time not often available to those who must also work full-time jobs. Thus, financial security indirectly affects which people become poets.