Poets die younger than writers, study finds

[Goldom]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/04/22/poet.deaths.reut/index.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Poets die young -- younger than novelists, playwrights and other writers, a U.S. researcher said Wednesday.

It could be because poets are tortured and prone to self-destruction, or it could be that poets become famous young, so their early deaths are noticed, said James Kaufman of the Learning Research Institute at California State University at San Bernardino.

For the report, published in the Journal of Death Studies, Kaufman studied 1,987 dead writers from various centuries from the United States, China, Turkey and Eastern Europe. He classified the writers as fiction writers, poets, playwrights, and nonfiction writers. He did not study the causes of death

<snip>

AVERAGE LITERARY LIFE SPANS
Poets 62
Playwrights 63
Novelists 66
Nonfictionwriters 68

<snipsnip>

Writers die in their 60s?! ...i think i picked the wrong job...

[skip fox]

1. Yep. It can be a grim business.

:toast:

[smirkymonkey]

2. It seems that a disproportionate number of writers

are prone to depression and subtance abuse, particularly alcholism. That could be part of the reason for the age of deaths being below the average.

Does it give a breakdown of cause of death?