How Poets Make a Living Summary and Analysis

In this concluding chapter of the book, Hugo attempts to define some differences of a poet working in the "real world" and a poet working in a university. First, Hugo defends the university as being just as much if not more real than his time spent working in other jobs. He writes that although he deals with students, he is also faced with more real world issues that he ever was in his factory job.

Hugo goes on to describe the one work incident that inspired a poem. This incident occurred when Hugo worked at Boeing. Hugo's supervisor tells him about a situation where a squatter had to be evicted from company land. Although the poem grew mostly from Hugo's memory, it was well received by Boeing employees. Many requested copies of the...