Father poet and mother page yearn to give birth to every possible childlike words that somehow encase our infantile spasms to express. In this powerful and mighty universe, we are but irreverent children, fumbling our way around. Poetry has only been around since the great storytellers of the ancients. And yet, we still haven’t found our way. Centuries of developing meter, diction, and rhyme have gone to the wayside thanks to other poets such as Whitman and Frost. Redemption has shown its frightful head through the works of Maya Angelou and others. But why were these gifts from our poetic forefathers disregarded for the sake of greater expression? Is it the pride of arrogance and rebellion that teenagers express when they refuse to need their parents? I’ve been reading the trade magazines and I am reading today’s poets. Here is the poem that I just wrote…

Lettin’ off a Little Steam

Readin’ poet trade magazines
Looking for craft and skill
When none is found
Then what should I think?
They are getting published and
Their names are on the cover, but
I read their poetry and I find a lack
Of elegance and poise.

Brutal are these pen masters to
Their topics and their paper.
Forcing words to conglomerate
And coagulate in needless
Procession. If them then
Why not me?

Simple, theirs is the courage that
I have yet to find. Theirs is the courage
That I seek and yearn for.
Or arrogance perhaps? My pen
Is encouraged and well pleased
With OUR relationship. It is happy to
Be put to the pad and scribe for
Its master. Some day’s are happily
Filled with rhyme and meter. Other
Days are filled in free verse but with
Sense making words plugged in to
General thought processes.

Hide pen, hide in fear that the professing
Poet may grab you like Neanderthals scraping
Their knuckles across the paper with ink
Coming out of the tips. Hide that these
Kamikaze literates will target you with
Its degree baring strokes, like a dog scraping
Its butt on the carpet to scratch that little itch.

“Regardless of the vomit I spew on the page
I will presume to acknowledge my talent
That I ASS U ME that you think I have.”
Says the lady with her picture between the covers
Of this magazine. “Are there not certain
Privileges and rights to me because of my
Education and your lack of one?” asked the
Elderly man who has lived the extremely
Odd and eccentric unproductive life.
Flee you reader, and search not within
These pages of poems to find the old
Fashion but long forgotten rhyme and meter.
Look not here, for those who have been
Trained who now rebuke the knowledge of
The craft in which we profess. “Boundaries be
Cursed!” they will say. “No obligation do
I have to my literary forefathers!” and then
They run rabid like old yeller at the end
Of the movie who ‘needed’ to be put to
Sleep.

I wait for the light saber bearing teenager
Who will bring that new hope to the
Community that I profess. Or perhaps
I should get off my ever widening backside
And do something about it.
Copyright c.2005 P. Allan Frederick


Almost the entire poem is an exaggeration for drama’s sake. Ugly images and startling words were brought to the fore front for a purpose. Last year, I read a great deal of the great poets of the 19th and 20th centuries. I am amazed at the grace of these words while making no compromise in content and intent. These words are crafted like skilled woodworker, sculpting and chipping each and every stanza. But when I read today’s poet’s, I am squeamish at the chopping and hacking at dead trees, in search of the new innovation. Vulgarity and shock value loom and weave these butcher block floors.

So I make a decision, the decision to lead by repentance. I wish not to throw out progress made in free verse, only “progress” made by impenitent mouth washers whose only goal is to make their opinion find great worth. Oh, the poet has his pain, as stated in my first chapbook, Back from Dreamland, page 52…
The Poet’s Pain

Aahrrg, the burden of the poet,
To lay waste of words in wait.
Anxiety alone in line to the ten o’clock
Panels of expression in vocabulary angst.

The torture and ache of a poets pain
Dragging on paper lit with joy of sorrow
Eager to shine thoughts, defeats, and
Examination of literatures soul.

Unleash your barge docked in tow!
Get it out and run the pan of rapids
Rudder honed only by desire to be heard
Poets pain freight carried ashore.
Copyright ©2005 P. Allan Frederick, Carla Frederick

And I understand that pain. I understand the need to express and call the universes attention to me through each word captured on paper, made to submit to our literary egos.
We’re trapped in a way, us poets. The need to innovate is fierce, and mandatory to meet the requirements of pretentious magazine and publisher editors. If you want to read some good poetry, buy a copy of a poetry anthology magazine, or a magazine about poets, and you will see advertisements from small house printers and publishers pushing their new poets chapbooks. Write down the address and order it. Find one for whatever reason that appeals to you, and buy one. Or better yet, go to a poetry reading with enough money to buy a cup of coffee, and a chapbook. Support that poet, and support the literary arts, specifically, the continual growth of poetry.

The singular chapbook will have more to say than a novel of monotone gibber gab, hailing to narcissistic demigods of the poetry world.