Every poet does something to make a living, but some of us dare to balance our poetic lives with careers that have nothing to do with writing, editing, publishing, or teaching. In the tradition of William Carlos Williams (poet-physician) and Wallace Stevens (poet-businessman/lawyer), four double-life poets will share their perspectives on when poetry and non-literary careers don’t mix and when they do, and why our non-literary careers are not just another day job. Panelists include a data engineer, a certified Scrum Master, a higher education researcher, and an infectious disease program director. Two out of the four panelists are poets of color.

Speakers

K. T. Landon

K. T. Landon is the author of Orange, Dreaming (Five Oaks Press, 2017) and received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poems have appeared in The Sun, The Southern Review, New Ohio Review, Nimrod, Spillway, North American Review, Narrative, and Best New Poets. She is... Read More →

Pamela Taylor

Pamela L. Taylor lives and works in the Boston area, chronicling her experiences as a poet with a non-literary career on her blog (www.poetsdoublelife.com). Pam’s recent work has appeared in The Adirondack Review, Atlas+Alice, and JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association... Read More →

Cynthia Manick

Poet and Curator

Winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry, Cynthia Manick is the author of No Sweet Without Brine (Amistad-HaperCollins, 2023), editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry, and author of Blue Hallelujahs. She has received fellowships from... Read More →

Robert Carr

Robert Carr comes to poetry via a public health career, where he served as Deputy Director for The Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences at the Massachusetts DPH. He is the author of Amaranth, published in 2016 by Indolent Books, The Unbuttoned Eye, from 3: A Taos Press... Read More →