D.W. Rodgers | + Follow Poet |
Free verse | + Fav Poem | Comment | Email | Print |

Poetic License

I not sure I’ll renew my poet’s license this
year, most of the keepers have been kept 
with the biggest ones caught, stuffed and hung
on the walls of tumbledown fishing lodges.
Although there are rumors, that the big one 
Bishop caught and released back in 1946 
still swims somewhere in the dark waters 
between Nova Scotia and Massachusetts.

These days, Brautigan would have to wade
much further upstream to go trout fishing in 
America as bass have taken over the lower 
reaches, which have warmed due to climate 
change, aided and abetted by ATV's SUVs, 
Jet Skis and those monster Bass Boats 
with their three hundred horsepower engines 
which race across the waters in those TV Bass
Fishing Tourneys, even though I must admit I 
I sometimes watch them in the channel’s free month. 
but now I must paddle and haul my canoe over three
portages to find cool water and a bit of peace and quiet.

Then too, poetry isn’t what it used to be
with rhyme, rhythm and form relegated 
to dusty archives in lonely libraries. 
Nowadays, everything is computers and 
online, with pen and paper abandoned, as 
Instant Instagram Poets proclaim over this 
“new” medium, spouting their infantile 
insights regarding the mysteries of life 
and love into an existential echo chamber, 
leaving us unpublished old poets grumbling 
in our garrets as we scribble by candlelight.
.

Copyright © D.W. Rodgers | Year Posted 2020

Please Login to post a comment

Sally Eslinger Date: 12/28/2020 9:27:00 PM Hello D.W", now here i am fascinated & ful of ?’s, sent to you w/MUCH admiration, for a continuing discourse. 1st, although delineated this marvelous -as I’d call it opinion” poem, reads very quite like my course in Poetic Prose poetry, which I adore Do know about this type of poetry? Too loveterm Incidental Login to Reply D.W. Rodgers Date: 1/1/2021 7:14:00 AM I like the idea of Response Poetry and most of my politicla stuff would be along that line, D.W. Rodgers Date: 1/1/2021 7:13:00 AM Thanks Sally, I know little about Poetic Prose poetry. It sounds like an interesting course but as a science student, I had little formal exposure to the arts. I think some of my work might well qualify but I also play with line length and breaks rather than present prose blocks. I have dabbled with Haibun and find both interesting ways to express my thoughts. Sally Eslinger Date: 12/28/2020 9:42:00 PM Incidental Poet, which to me implies a kind of Response Poetry, implying not a scheduled daily sitting at a desk to create by a disciplined work effort as many novelists do. So, yes by that, I’d call 1/2 All poetry incidental. Your thought re:? ? So interested here. Thanks. Nice to meet you!