I’ve been a professor of philosophy and the humanities for over thirty years and I write poetry and poetic fables. Thus ~ philosopher-poet. But that answer barely skims the surface.

If I had to sum myself up in three words, it would be these: I explore consciousness. When I was a child I posed metaphysical questions ~ though I didn’t know what metaphysics was. By the time I went to college, I had discovered philosophy. I learned quite a lot, but I realized that philosophy was not enough. It was not the end of my exploration. It was only the beginning.

To explore consciousness, I had to study the irrational as well as the rational. I had to study dreams, visions, fantasies, and all species of numinous experience. And I had to give voice to these ineffable experiences. I had to express the inexpressible and describe the indescribable. To do this, I had to abandon linear narrative, realism, conventional language. I needed a primal or mythic language ~ the language of poetry and fable.

Source: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/9375395-why-do-i-call-myself-a-philosopher-poet