Julie, from the time I picked up poetry again (after a long hiatus of nineteen years), I considered myself a poet, whether I was writing at the time or not. My full-time job as a professor kept me very busy, but I would jot down ideas when they came to me, and then I would work on them when I had the time. My mental identification as a poet had nothing to do with whether the poems were getting published (for years, they were not), but just with my passion for poetry and my joy in writing it. If you asked me what I did, I would probably say that I taught, because most people who ask that question want to know how you earn a living. I added "translator" to my mental categories once I started doing that again. Neither the poetry nor the translation has ever paid me a living wage, yet they are both very much what I define myself through.
Susan
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