Rhyme and punishment

What was the deal with poets in mid-twentieth-century American hard-boiled writing?

First this, from Dashiell Hammett's story "Too Many Have Lived" (1932):

"`I'd want to talk to her,' Spade said. `Who is this Eli Haven?'

"`He's a bad egg. He doesn't do anything. Writes poetry or something.'"

Thirteen years later, Brett Halliday the author, Murder Is My Business the book, Mike Shayne the detective:

"She won't be married — unless Towne has changed a lot. That's the job I did for him. There was a chap named Lance Bayliss. A poet, Lucy, and a poet is lower than dirt to a two-fisted, self-made financier like Jefferson Towne."

So, just to be on the safe side, if you're a character in a hard-boiled book, try not to be a poet. Or at least get a real job, and write on the side.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010