Do you think one can stop being a poet?

Question: What happens to a poet, when he stops writing poetry? Do you still consider yourself a poet?
Answer: 'I don’t think poets are any special species. Intellectuals are. I mean intellectuals in a broad sense – people prone to all sorts of intellectual reflection. People who think intensively on what they think, what they see, what they hear, what they read, and try to articulate their thoughts, their feelings. There are different techniques of reflection, and this is where the difference between, say, poetry and philosophy or political analysis comes from. But basically this is the same sort of intellectual activity, which profoundly differs from a non-reflective, ‘spontaneous’ way of life. In these terms, I believe, nobody can stop being a poet if he/she has ever practised this sort of intellectual activity. He/she can stop writing poems, of course, as many, actually the majority of young people do eventually. But they certainly cannot give up intellectual reflection – maybe with a minor exception of yoga converts who employ special elaborated techniques to this end.' Mykola Ryabchuk explains to Kateryna Botanova why he still considers himself a poet even though he hasn’t written a line since 1988.