We have to make a living. We want to be in the world — to be engaged with other people. One has to know one’s own temperament. I think of someone like Liz Rosenberg, a strong poet, and it’s impossible to imagine her not teaching. She is so gifted at it. And she seems to be able to write her wonderful poems, and her energy is unabated. But there are the great writers who couldn’t teach. Bishop, famously, was a terrible teacher. I always want to say to the young writers I work with, you can be an artist without teaching. You are an artist. You don’t need an academy to tell you what you are. Whitman didn’t teach. Emily Dickinson didn’t teach. John Keats didn’t teach. Rilke didn’t teach. Let’s go on and on. Let’s make a list of all the writers who we read who didn’t teach. Teaching is great but let’s not put the equal sign between them. That is one thing, but this is another.