Certainly anyone whom I've witnessed who has gone through something horrible and life-changing has a sense of ironic humor or an ability to look at the peculiarities of the world and find humor in it.
As things are and as fundamentally they must always be poetry is not a career but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.
