“We poets in our youth begin in gladness,” wrote Wordsworth, who might have felt otherwise had he spent his own youth as an adjunct assistant professor of creative writing. If he’d done so, as many younger writers do nowadays, he’d probably have thought twice about pairing “gladness” with a job that often involves $50,000 in student loans and no health insurance. To be fair, it’s never been easy to be a young poet, and teaching creative writing is certainly safer than working as a roofer. Yet because most are neither wealthy (like the young James Merrill) nor constantly in jeopardy (like Villon), writers in their early careers today face a peculiar and sometimes unenviable set of circumstances. On the one hand, the proliferation of M.F.A. programs gives a poet the chance to make a sort-of living from his art; on the other hand, the insularity of that world can tax both an artist’s social skills and his resistance to fashion. Given these difficulties, it’s tempting to replace Wordsworth’s salute to youthful vitality with the 29-year-old Bon Scott’s less optimistic observation: “If you wanna be a star of stage and screen / Look out, it’s rough and mean.”