List of poets without degrees from:
TERMINAL CHAOSITY
No dismissing that education is important but fed up with the 'without an MFA or PhD you are not a worthy poet'
I goggled "poets without degrees" and voila came up
TERMINAL CHAOSITY, thank you Laura Heidy! I have a degree but no in
writing, in college I loved Journalism but my main goal was to get a good
job.
Poets Without Degrees:
ERNEST HEMINGWAY - ambulance driver
ANNE SEXTON - advanced education consisted of attending Finishing School.
CARL SANDBURG - left school at 13, went back and re-tackled academia at a later date but left before completing a 4 year degree.
HART CRANE - dropped out of high school and took to the sea and the streets.
LANGSTON HUGHES - left college after two semesters and eventually ended up doing a myrid of things - two of which were washing dishes and writing.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLY - expelled from Oxford
EMILY DICKINSON - returned home after one year at Mary Lyon's Mount Holyoke Female Seminary and seldom left home again.
DYLAN THOMAS - left school at 16 to become a reporter.
BOB DYLAN - left college after his first year.
EDGAR ALAN POE - gave up formal education in 1927 at the age of 18 after losing his tuition money due to a gambling problem.
WALT WHITMAN - His mother was barely literate and his father was a carpenter. In 1823 the family moved to Brooklyn, where for six years Whitman attended public schools. It was the only formal education he ever received.
CARL SANDBURG - joined the army during the Spanish American War, spent 2 weeks at West Point, left for another college in Galesburg and then left there without a degree.
ROBERT FROST - attended both Dartmouth and Harvard but never obtained a formal degree from either.
WILLIAM BLAKE - never attended school - was educated at home by his mother.
PABLO NERUDA - gave up his formal studies at the age of 20 to devote himself to writing.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING - self-taught
ROBERT BROWNING - In 1828, at the age of 16, Browning enrolled at the University of London, but he soon left, anxious to read and learn at his own pace.
WILLIAM BLAKE - When he turned fourteen, he apprenticed with an engraver because art school proved too costly. In 1782, he married an illiterate woman named
Catherine Boucher. Blake taught her to read and to write, and also instructed her in draftsmanship. Later, she helped him print the illuminated poetry for which he is remembered today.
LORD BYRON - once he inherited the title and property of his great-uncle in 1798, he went to Dulwich, Harrow, where he excelled in swimming, and Cambridge, where he piled up debts and aroused alarm with bisexual love affairs. It's unclear as to whether he actually got a degree in anything or not.
DANTE - studied at home, as was usual for the times.
