I kind of agree with the jolly elf that it is a shame that "most American poetry is being written by those who make their living in the academic world." That's why I've always tried to invite some poets who aren't academics to speak in the poetics seminar: Jim McCrary, Jordan Davis, Ron Silliman. Of course, I'm an academic myself, and write poetry. My publication of poetry, however, has been miniscule enough so that I'm not a huge part of the problem all by myself.

If you are an academic, it's better not to be in an English department. Better still if you are in mathematics like Judy Roitman or art history like David Shapiro.

Some of my favorite non-professor poets: William Carlos Williams, doctor, Clark Coolidge, (what does Clark do for a living?) James Schuyler, art critic and then simply unemployed, Barbara Guest, (art critic and then... I'm not sure), Frank O'Hara, museum curator, Frank Lima, chef, Joseph Ceravolo, engineer.

Gilbert Sorrentino taught at Stanford, but he was a fish out of water--very ill at ease in academia and for this reason good FOR academia. Academia might not be good for poets but poets can be good for academia, if they are not academic poets.

Jorge Guillén and Pedro Salinas were poet-professors, so it's not an exclusively American phenomenon.