What Is a Poet? On (not) Being a Profession.

Poetry is a career with no necessary institutional affiliation. Drawing from interview and ethnographic data this paper uses Abbot's work on jursidictions in the field of professions, and Stebbins analysis of the system of relations between amateurs and professionals to provide a better sociological understanding of poets. Seeing poetry as a 'calling' accepts too many of the romantic misrecognitions of the field and does not allow for adequate analysis. In addition, this paper proposes the concept of 'symbiotic careers' to better understand how artistic careers are interwoven with necessary work outside of the arts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]