Perhaps I’ve gone asunder?- perhaps the old Joycester is irredeemable? Well, no. I forgot to mention that the last 2 poems, The Moods & Into The Twilight, were not written by JK. They were penned & published (no less) by W.B Yeats- YES, oft-hailed as the greatest English language poet since Billy Shakes! They are both from his early book The Wind Among The Reeds (1899). Will you now trust my opinion, at least a little? Thank you very much. Just read the Yeats poems vis-à-vis the JK poems & there’s not much difference. In fact, Yeats’ may very well be worse. I know, I know, I suckered you, & again broke my initial promise. I’m a bastard- but a correct bastard! I’m so confident that my little trickery saved me a few paragraphs worth of 'splainin’ that I will not waste more words nor time on JK- on to a more modern poetaster: Richard Brautigan.
  Of all the doggerelists in this essay my money says that RB was very much the most self-aware SAD. He knew his limits to the Nth degree. Of all the SADs he knew that 1 of poetry’s sharpest tools is concision. His poems are brief, to the point, often humorous, & at their worst- not really poems- just dull jottings. He knew this! His critics point to the 80% or so of his poems that are just these dull jottings. They ignore the 1 in 5 poems that are well-written & poignant examples of humor. The factor of his SAD status comes in the fact that critics routinely ignore the 98 or more % of other poets’ bad writings & praise their 1 or 2 % of the best- which usually soars to the heights of the mediocre. This double standard is all-too typical of the hypocrisy critics show SADs. Anyway, Excelsior! Read this poem & let’s compare it to the Leonard Cohen poem which appeared earlier in the essay:

  RB’s is clearly the better poem. It’s funnier, more individuated & specific. Only RB could have written this poem- individuation is a great marker of the quality of an artist: the more individuated the better- USUALLY! The LC poem is generic- poems like it have been written 1000s of times before. RB’s poem has a real person. LC’s has a Hopperesque zomboid- & the point is not the zomboid, but that he does nothing with it. Often RB’s poems, however- are little more than descriptions, or notations, such as this meager poem:

15%

she tries to get things
out of men
that she can't get
because she's not
15% prettier

  A nice idea, but there is no haikuvian ‘moment’. Here’s another in the same vein technically- as well thematically, & dramatically:

Just Because

  In a sense, this sort of writing is criticism-proof. Why bother when the writer is not aiming to engage, merely scribble a notation? Here’s why: read this next poem & see how significantly it differs from the prior 2. This has the haikuvian (or Rilkean) moment that the best poetry has. Yet it is not simplistic, but simple. Look how the title works with individual lines we’ve read exactly written that way before. Even the usually annoying repetition of the 1^st line after the title has a ‘hiccup’ effect- as if we’re about to be startled. This is especially evident upon rereading the poem:

We Stopped at Perfect Days

  Even the hanging last line, used here- in this manner is not as bad nor mawkish as it could have been had it been appended to a different poem. Many a poem by an OD is just as brief, with a similar narrative- but those poems lack the guilelessness. They often insist on having a title that refers to the wisdom of the poet- i.e.- ‘namedropping’ of a philosopher or artist or scientific theory. Here’s another poem that echoes the effect of the last poem. I doubt RB gave a second’s thought to the poem’s enjambment- but look how that factor heightens the poem. 1^st, read the poem straight through as prose, then reread it & emphasize the lines by themselves- especially the last 3 lines:

30 Cents, Two Transfers, Love

Thinking hard about you
I got on the bus
and paid 30 cents car fare
and asked the driver for two transfers
before discovering
that I was
alone.

  While most political poetry sucks because it states the obvious- & over & over, RB’s political poems are generally better than most. Why? Concision! Here are 2 nicely pointed poems. &, again, this is relative, as none of these poems is particularly good:

Mating Saliva

A girl in a green mini-
skirt, not very pretty, walks
down the street.

A businessman stops, turns
to stare at her ass
that looks like a moldy
refrigerator

There are now 200,000,000 people
in America

"Star-Spangled" Nails

  But, while not particularly good they are concise- & their punchlines pack more of a wallop than most political pap-poetry. There have been many poems written on the next subject- including a book-length dull atrocity. Yet, RB’s is probably the most apt & ‘real’- even if it is little more than a thought. The point is, HE KNEW WHEN ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH!:

Donner Party

Forsaken, fucking in the cold,
eating each other, lost
runny noses,
complaining all the time
like so many
people
that we know

  & how many poems have borne the same title as this next ditty? How many of them so self-consciously tried to be hip by undermining the title? RB’s has got to be 1 of the more successful ruse-poems:

Love Poem

It's so nice
to wake up in the morning
all alone
and not have to tell somebody
you love them
when you don't love them
any more

  But, the reason RB is a SAD (emphasis on the D) is because he could not tell the difference between a nice sharp single like Love Poem, & a foul pop out like this:

Discovery

The petals of the vagina unfold
like Christofer Columbus
taking off his shoes.

Is there anything more beautiful
than the bow of a ship
touching a new world?

  Everything here is forced- from the flower/petal/vagina image to the sea (feminine)/prow(masculine) imagery. Even the title reeks. The shoe metaphor seems out of left field. In short, this is RB at his worst- even when concise. But, wacky imagery can work- read this little gem:

Surprise

I lift the toilet seat
as if it were the nest of a bird
and I see cat tracks
all around the edge of the bowl.

  The point- & it’s the reason RB is a SAD- is that RB was clueless as to when he was good & when he sucked. In the same vein is this little ditty:

The Affectionate Lightbulb

I have a 75 watt, glare free, long life
Harmony House light bulb in my toilet.
I have been living in the same apartment
for over two years now
and that bulb just keeps burning away.
I believe that it is fond of me.

  By way of comparison, recall how OD Sharon Olds incessantly fetishizes bodily functions. But, RB was very aware of his limitations- he could fundamentally never have produced the dreck of SO. As bad as he could be, he was a better poet- both comparatively, & really, than that. Let me end this section by just emphasizing that none of these 4 poetasters were close to being great poets. But WM’s place as the Ed Wood of poetry is secure- & wouldn’t you rather watch Plan 9 From Outer Space than Heaven’s Gate or Ishtar or Titanic? What makes Plan 9, comparatively, a better film than the other 3 is that it is guileless: ‘You humans are stupid, stupid, stupid!’ Eugene Field tops a Donald Hall for similar reasons: there is no pretense, & occasionally he’d slip a bit of good poison (Chicago Weather) in with the bad- when has DH ever done that? & you honestly did not notice the shift from Kilmer to Yeats- did you? Admit it, even the mention of ‘Eire’ in Into The Twilight did not clue you in- ‘nuff said! As for RB, perhaps he has more in common with a Will Rogers than a Will Shakespeare? The point is he knew it! Would that the bulk of ODs had such SAD insight! Let’s end with this bon mot from RB. Cheers!:

I Live in the Twentieth Century

Nonsense, You Say!: Lewis Carroll, Edgar Guest, Edward Lear, & Ogden Nash

  Of the 4 groupings of SADs, this group probably gets the least critical dissing because, even more than Eugene Field, their stuff is perceived as child’s play- they are often lumped as a group, & called Nonsense Poets. This is a generally correct interpretation. Yet, Academics often derisively refer to poems they don’t like by comparing their thought, philosophy, or politics to that practiced by 1 of this quartet.
  On to the obligatory: Everyone knows Lewis Carroll from the prose of his Alice books (Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland & Through The Looking-Glass), or his famous nonsense poems Jabberwocky or The Hunting Of The Snark. His real name was Charles Dodgson. He was born in 1832 in Daresbury, Cheshire, England. His father was a minister, & LC was- besides a writer- a deacon & mathematician- he even published several mathematical treatises, but was no threat to Einstein. He never married & has been posthumously (& most likely unfairly) dogged by rumors of homosexuality & pedophilia- for he often found joy in weaving tales to little girls. His love of children led to other passions as inventor of games, mnemonics, puzzles, & photography. LC was a master of fantasy & his stories illogic read as precursors to later writers as J.R.R. Tolkien. LC used puns & neologisms, his own 'portmanteau’ inventions: chortle from snort & chuckle. He is praised for his prose, while his poetry is tolerated within ‘its limits’. LC died in 1898
  Edgar Guest was born in Birmingham, England, in 1881. His family moved to Detroit when he was 10 years old. In 1895 he got work as a copy boy for the Detroit Free Press. EG then rose to police reporter, exchange editor, & verse columnist. In 1904 his column Chaff was born. It soon became the syndicated Breakfast Table Chat. His guileless poems soon started appearing. Several of his books of verse sold close to or more than a million copies. EG married & had 2 kids. He died in 1959 as a lifelong Freemason & Episcopal parishioner. His sentimental poems were much loved- even as they were artistically reviled. EG boasted of writing over 11,000 ‘poems’. Perhaps 10, 900 of them were meritless. 100 had merit- that’s less than 1/100 of a percent- hmm….doesn’t seem to be much better nor worse than the rest of published poetry’s success rate!
  Edward Lear was born on in 1812, in London, England. His professional career started as a children’s book illustrator. The Earl of Derby was a benefactor who encouraged Lear to publish his 1^st book of verse for children: the Book of Nonsense (1846). EL left England & rarely returned. His limericks garnered him worldwide fame, which could not lift EL’s spirits from manic depression. He died from a stroke, after a lifetime of epileptic seizures, in 1888.
  Ogden Nash was born Frederick Ogden Nash in 1902, in Rye, New York. Prior to ON’s fame the most noted Nash in the family was a distant relative: General Francis Nash, for whom Nashville, Tennessee is named. ON grew up in Georgia & went to college in New England. He wrote advertisements for a living. His 1st kids book was The Cricket of Caradon (1925).  He then joined the magazine New Yorker in 1932 & married the next year. He died in 1971 & was buried in New Hampshire.
  As I’ve said, this group of SADs has garnered the least derision, yet their poems are often offhandedly used as comparisons for insubstantial poetry- let’s see why & why these comparisons are specious. Let’s look at some snips from LC’s oeuvre:

My Fairy

I have a fairy by my side
Which says I must not sleep,
When once in pain I loudly cried
It said "You must not weep" 

If, full of mirth, I smile and grin,
It says "You must not laugh"
When once I wished to drink some gin
It said "You must not quaff".

When once a meal I wished to taste
It said "You must not bite"
When to the wars I went in haste
It said "You must not fight".

"What may I do?" at length I cried,
Tired of the painful task.
The fairy quietly replied,
And said "You must not ask".

Moral: "You mustn't."

  Despite the childish approach this is a very good & grim poem. Look at the last 7 lines- what a turn away from the sing-songy set-up! The music is fine & bouncy- but this poem is just not a children’s poem. When confronting war & death no comfort is given. The Moral is even gloomier- a call to inanition? But even when we look to the 1^st ½ of the poem we see foreshadowings of what is to come. Why is the fairy so grim? Now, that is partly a rhetorical question- but this poem has many layers waiting to be unpeeled. Peel a few while I serve up another from LC:

Echoes

Lady Clara Vere de Vere
Was eight years old, she said:
Every ringlet, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden thread.

She took her little porringer:
Of me she shall not win renown:
For the baseness of its nature shall have strength to drag her down.

"Sisters and brothers, little Maid?
There stands the Inspector at thy door:
Like a dog, he hunts for boys who know not two and two are four."

  Another very dark & sinister poem- really read this poem & figure out what’s going on. My point, in these 2 examples, is merely to dispel the notion that this is ‘just Nonsense Verse’. Even his more famous poems- Jabberwocky & The Walrus And The Carpenter- have depths unplumbed. There is some real depth- especially psychic- & great potential in LC’s poems; he deserves far more respect as a ‘straight’ poet- for these & other of his poems! 1 wonders if sacrificing his delightful prose would be worth it had LC set his sights on being a ‘real’ bard! By contrast, here’s a typical poem from EG:

Myself

I have to live with myself, and so,
I want to be fit for myself to know;
I want to be able as days go by,
Always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don't want to stand with the setting sun
And hate myself for the things I've done.
I don't want to keep on a closet shelf
A lot of secrets about myself,
And fool myself as I come and go
Into thinking that nobody else will know
The kind of man I really am;
I don't want to dress myself up in sham.
I want to deserve all men's respect;
But here in this struggle for fame and pelf,
I want to be able to like myself.
I don't want to think as I come and go
That I'm for bluster and bluff and empty show.
I never can hide myself from me,
I see what others may never see,
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself -- and so,
Whatever happens, I want to be
Self-respecting and conscience free.

  OK- he’s obviously not in LC’s class. But all of EG’s verse manifests this self-awareness of its own meager nature- lest why such absolute straight-forwardness? Bear in mind the similarities & differences to the earlier reviewed To Mary Field French, by Eugene Field:

Mother

Never a sigh for the cares that she bore for me
Never a thought of the joys that flew by;
Her one regret that she couldn't do more for me,
Thoughtless and selfish, her Master was I.

Oh, the long nights that she came at my call to me!
Oh, the soft touch of her hands on my brow!
Oh, the long years that she gave up her all to me!
Oh, how I yearn for her gentleness now!

Slave to her baby! Yes, that was the way of her,
Counting her greatest of services small;
Words cannot tell what this old heart would say of her,
Mother -- the sweetest and fairest of all.

  Kind of makes old EF look like a Master of Obfuscation, eh? Speaking of Masters- let’s take a gander at that Master of Limericks, Edward Lear. Here’s a few: 

There was an Old Man of Cape Horn,
Who wished he had never been born;
So he sat on a chair,
Till he died of despair,
That dolorous Man of Cape Horn.

There was Old Man in a pew,
Whose waistcoat was spotted with blue;
But he tore it in pieces
To give to his nieces,
That cheerful Old Man in a pew.

There was an Old Lady of Prague,
Whose language was horribly vague;
When they said, 'Are these caps?'
She answered, 'Perhaps!'
That oracular Lady of Prague.

There was an Old Man with a gong,
Who bumped at it all day long;
But they called out, 'O law!
You're a horrid old bore!'
So they smashed that Old Man with a gong.

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'

  Granted, limericks don’t offer much in the way of depth. But reread limericks 1, 2 & 3, & some interesting things pop out. 1 is a sort of Bartlebian character, 2 has Christ-like overtures, & 3 is almost Möbian in its possibilities. But, his is rather transparent verse, albeit occasionally piquant & well-wrought. The poin, again, is that these meager qualities are NEVER addressed, as EL’s poems are dismissed, while poetasters with worse & shallower verse garner raves sucking in the old Academic schlong 6 inches or more! Ogden Nash is the last of our nonsense poets, & while LC is clearly the best, & EG & EL are clearly lesser lights, ON falls somewhere in between. I would surmise closer to LC, although not too close. Here are some of his patented bestiary-type poems (in ascending size order):

The Germ

A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.

The Fly

God in his wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why.

The Octopus

Tell me, O Octopus, I begs
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus;
If I were thou, I'd call me U.

  Clearly, these poems- while not as formally tight as RL’s limericks, are better as poems. The insistent coupletting & humor give them a limerickian quality, yet they also allow for poetic scatting: the ‘So what?’ in The Ant, or the effective poor grammar & spelling in The Octopus. But there was a more ‘serious’ side to ON’s Nonsense Verse:

I Didn't Go to Church Today

I didn’t go to church today,
I trust the Lord to understand.
The surf was swirling blue and white,
The children swirling on the sand.
He knows, He knows how brief my stay,
How brief this spell of summer weather,
He knows when I am said and done
We’ll have plenty of time together.

  Compare this to the dim solemnity of a Eugene Field or the dull piety of a Joyce Kilmer. This poem is better because it both recaps the posits of those types of poems & has its own odd little mix of surrealism within it. Look at the lines ‘The surf was swirling blue and white, /The children swirling on the sand. /He knows, He knows how brief my stay, /How brief this spell of summer weather’. By themselves they really tug against the poem’s general flow. A contra-movement like this in a poem brings to mind some of the very Abstract Expressionistic qualities in portions of paintings by Andrew Wyeth. The reason why a Wyeth was a better painter than any of the Ab Exers is that Ab Ex was not an end to itself, but a tool to serve a larger purpose. Movements like this do the same in poetry. Then the poem returns to its leaden & child-like end. But this contra-movement, whether by mere fortuity or design, lifts this & other poems of ON beyond mere Nonsense. Granted, the majority of his poems do not scale such heights- but some do- & do it well. A tangential expression of this sort of contra-movement is the punning used in this ostensibly simplistic rhyme by ON: 

Always Marry an April Girl 

Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you. 

  The pun with the female name & the month is the manifest 1- but look how the title really adds another layer- the female as the month, in mood & being. Is this the work of a poetic master? No. But, it does show thought & skill- at times. Those 2 qualities are often missing from contemporary published poetry. Let me end by reiterating that these 4 poets have not gotten the vitriol reserved for the other poetasters mentioned- mostly because they called their poetry Nonsense Poetry or Children’s Verse. The final group of SADs, however, were not so lucky, as they had to put up with Rod McKuenesque derision for decades before RM arrived on the poetic scene.

Wide Open Spaces: Robert Service, Banjo Paterson, John G. Neihardt, & the Cowboy Poets

  While the last couple of decades have seen the poetry of Robert Service & Banjo Paterson get a little bit more critical respect (after decades as serving as Poster Boys for doggerel), John G. Neihardt’s poetry is barely remembered. When it is, it is usually greeted with a roll of the eyes- an automatic lumping into the dungeon of doggerelist, alongside RS & BP. As for the related & generic Cowboy Poetry- well, it is generally as bad as it is thought to be- BUT, it is no worse (& most often alot better) than Nuyoricanism or Languagist doggerel. Primarily, these poets represent the poem as Narrative- a skill profoundly lost in most contemporary poetry circles. Let me lead off with the bios of these 3 (presumed) SADs.
  Robert Service was born in 1874 to a Scotch bank clerk & the daughter of an English factory owner. At 15 he went into the banking business, but emigrated to Canada in 1896. After a year & a ½ in the wilds of British Columbia RS cut out for California. For 6 years RS vagabonded the West Coast, until landing a banking job in 1903 in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. For RS it was a Nirvana that proved to be his Muse- the next few years saw his classic The Shooting of Dan McGrew & other poems take shape. He found a publisher for his work & actually made a nice profit, as the book sold well in Canada, the U.K. & the U.S.was born. In 1908 he was transferred 400 miles north to Dawson where the Ballads of a Cheechako took shape. More success financially persuaded RS to quit banking in 1909, & write verse fulltime. A novel on the 1898 Yukon Gold Rush did not do as well as his poetry. 1912 saw more great success with his next book of poems. RS was hailed as Canada’s Bard! RS left the Yukon & headed off to be a war correspondent during WW1. RS’s fame & finances allowed him to marry a French woman & buy a mansion in Brittany. The Post-War years saw RS’s fame & reputation shrivel. But, his wealth let him vagabond the world till his death in 1958. However, he never did return to his beloved Yukon after his 1912 departure.
  Andrew ‘Banjo’ Paterson was born in Narambla, New South Wales, Australia, in 1864. His day jobs were as a landed farmer & country lawyer. But, his poetry is where his renown lies. As balladeer of Australia’s Outback he was as beloved & famous in his life as RS was as Canada’s Yukon poet. He tried his hand in journalism, like RS, but a loathing of city life made his stints as magazine & newspaper editors brief. WW1 saw BP join up- he was assigned as an ambulance driver. BP’s nickname derived from the singability of many of his well-known poems-cum-songs: the most famous being the universally known Waltzing Matilda. Other poems that have made it into the popular, if not poetic, canon are: The Man From Snowy River, Clancy Of The Overflow, & The Man From Ironbark. Like RS, BP wrote prose stories, yet they also never got the accord that his verse did. Not as well known in this hemisphere as RS, BP’s reputation took a similar nosedive in his later years. It has yet to recover since his 1941 death. Yet Australia has kept note of his achievement by issuing his likeness on many stamps & on their $10 note.
  John G. Neihardt was born in 1881 in a Kansas log cabin. His 1^st decade saw his family traipse around the state. A pivotal spiritual event in JGN’s life was the flooding of the might Missouri River. While in Kansas he witnessed the Missouri River in full flood. At 10, his father abandoned his mother & 2 siblings. They moved to Wayne, Nebraska. At 12 JGN had a vision that he would be an important writer. His 1^st self-published poem The Divine Enchantment embarrassed him after publication & he burned every copy of the book he could find- an admirable deed, no doubt! In 1894 the 13 year old enrolled at Wayne State College where he taught himself Greek & Latin. He graduated 2 years later. The family traipsed about Nebraska, until in 1902 JGN went to work with an Indian Trader, collecting bills on Indian reservations. JGN’s love for Native Americana flowered- he was dubbed Little Bull Buffalo. JGN’s 1^st book A Bundle of Myrrh sold well & made JGN a ‘name’. His soon-to be-bride, Mona Martinson of New York City, a talented sculptress, was so impressed she wrote him. They fell in love via letters. A day after meeting in person, they married, as Mona abandoned the East for life on the Prairies. JGN then wrote his famed Cycle Of The West- an epic poem in 5 parts, & the world-renowned Black Elk Speaks- a highly mythologized prose tale of a supposed relative of Crazy Horse. But his popularity had crested during the Great Depression, & JGN died in relative obscurity in 1973- despite a resurgence in his work in his last few years.
  I will address the whole field of Cowboy Poetry when I get to it- for now, let’s look at some of the poetry of RS. I vow I will not quote from RS’s most famous poems- for the reasons that they are too well-known & too long to adequately speak on in this essay- his epopee is another matter. All of the poems I will examine are ‘lesser-known’ specimens of RS’s versic talent. Here’s the 1^st:

Dark Truth 

Birds have no consciousness of doom:
Yon thrush that serenades me daily
From scented snow of hawthorn bloom
Would not trill out his glee so gaily,
Could he foretell his songful breath
Would sadly soon be stilled in death.

Yon lambs that frolic on the lea
And incarnate the joy of life,
Would scarce disport them could they see
The shadow of the butcher's knife:
Oh Nature, with your loving ruth,
You spare them knowledge of Dark Truth.

Tis sad humanity alone,
(Creation's triumph ultimate)
The grimness of the grave is known,
The dusty destiny await ….
Oh bird and beast, with joy, elance
Effulgently your ignorance!
Oh man, previsioning the hearse,
With fortitude accept your curse! 

  OK, this is mawkish unmusicked crap from the get-go. Just looking at the title makes 1 wince. How can anything written by such a person stand on its own? But, let us look at another poem, less mawkish, more rowdy, & hiding a bit more meaning, as well sounding much better to the ear:

In Praise of Alcohol

Of vintage wine I am a lover;
To drink deep would be my delight;
If 'twere not for the bleak hangover
I'd get me loaded every night;
I'd whoop it up with song and laughter -
If 'twere not for the morning after.

For though to soberness I'm given
It is a thought I've often thunk:
The nearest that is Earth to Heaven
Is to get sublimely drunk;
Is to achieve divine elation
By means of generous libation.

Alas, the wine-ups claim their payment
And as the price if often pain,
If we could sense what morning grey meant
We never would get soused again;
Rather than buy a hob-nailed liver
I'm sure that we'd abstain for ever.

Yet how I love the glow of liquor,
As joyfully I drink it up!
Hoping that unto life's last flicker
With praise I'll raise the ruby cup;
And let me like a jolly monk
Proceed to get sublimely drunk.

  Hopkins he’s not- but look at stanza 2- does this not equate the nearness to divinity via means of altered states theme so entrenched in modern left wing thought, especially in artsy circles? Look at line 3, stanza 3- it’s a nice conflation of hangover with financial uncertainty. Is this not a ‘political statement’? The important point is not whether he does it excellently- but that he does it. Too often RS’s poems are dismissed out of hand as mere drinking songs- with the same sort of disclaimer that the rock group Pink Floyd’s music gets: i.e.- it’s better when you’re high or drunk! But, the poems can be appraised more directly- as poetry alone. OK, now reread RS’s last 2 poems. Note the decrease in clichés- & the corresponding betterment of the 2^nd poem. Now, let’s follow that trend to this little gem (of its sort):

Individualist 

Because I am a self-made man
    And forged alone my fate,
I hate their molly-coddle plan
    Their Economic State.
From out the lowest of the low,
    Aye, from the very ditch,
I've traded bitter blow for blow,
    - And now I'm rich.

Because no man has aided me
    In all I've been and done,
In battle for security
    I owe not any one.
Let all upstand as I upstood,
    With hand and heart and mind;
Let each make good as I made good,
     - His level to find.

Because I hate your Welfare State
    That breeds a weakling race,
I deem the days more truly great
    When brawn and brain had place;
When strong men strove to hold their own,
    And fought to win their way . . .
Social Security you prone,
    - The Hell!, I say!

  Note the rollicking rhythms within. This poem’s sound & words amply expose its provenance as a ‘Man’s Poem’! While the overall statement of the poem is not new (even then), & stanza 1 has 2 clichés (you know them!), this poem is remarkably straight-forward in its assault on its political target. The dovetail of aim & form are remarkable. Even the title can be read as noun or adjective. This is a good poem. Is it great? No. Could it be great? No. It has topped out as best a poem of this nature can. So why would a poem like this cause sneers if written & published today? 1) The politics. 2) The baldness of statement. 3) the seeming ‘bad music’ which is really apropos to its subject- therefore ‘VERY GOOD’!, & 4) Its self-awareness of the preceding 3 factors. When I have seen poems of this nature occasionally crop up at the Uptown Poetry Group I run, I always seek to try to get the poem to make the most out of those 4 factors I cite. Too often critics & teachers will try to ‘homogenize’ poetry. I decry not only that but state directly- this poem is a better poem & ‘political poem’ than all but the top 3 or 4 published ‘political poems’ of the last 30 years or so in America. Admittedly, this poem is a high point, & most of RS’s shorter poems resemble the prior 2. But, the point is- NOT ALL OF HIS STUFF CAN OR SHOULD BE DISMISSED SO EASILY! Let me end my delve into RS’s oeuvre with this poem that falls somewhere in the middle. See if you can spot its strengths & weaknesses- & how they relate to my observations on his just-discussed poems:

The Men That Don't Fit In

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
    A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
    And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
    And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
    And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
    They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
    And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
    What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
    Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
    With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
    Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
    Forgets that his prime is past,

Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
    In the glare of the truth at last.  

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
    He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
    And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
    He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
    He's a man who won't fit in.

  See what I mean? But if RS is, indeed, a mixed bag- it behooves his readers, teachers, & critics to treat his work as such. Not all Robert Service is garbage just as not all William Shakespeare is divine! Let’s take a peek at some of RS’s austerly literary cousin’s poetry. Banjo Paterson’s poetry has commonalities with RS’s- & clear divergences. Here’s a famous ditty from BP:

Mulga Bill's Bicycle 

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?"

"See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me.
I'm good all round at everything, as everybody knows,
Although I'm not the one to talk - I hate a man that blows.
But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wildcat can it fight.
There's nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
There's nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof, or wheel,
But what I'll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight:
I'll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight. 

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode,
That perched above the Dead Man's Creek, beside the mountain road.
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
But ere he'd gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver streak,
It whistled down the awful slope towards the Dead Man's Creek.

It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box:
The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks,
The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground,
As Mulga Bill, as white as chalk, sat tight to every bound.
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
And then as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dead Man's Creek.

'Twas Mulga Bill from Eaglehawk, that slowly swam ashore:
He said, "I've had some narrer shaves and lively rides before;
I've rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five-pound bet,
But this was the most awful ride that I've encountered yet.
I'll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; It's shaken all my nerve
To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve.
It's safe at rest in Dead Man's Creek, we'll leave it lying still;
A horse's back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill."

  1) BP’s poems generally are longer lined than RS’s- this allows for more of a smooth, rolling rhythm. 2) This smoothness serves BP’s more highly comic style better than RS’s more bawdy takes. 3) BP shares RS’s self-aware directness. For what it sets out to do, this poem accomplishes about all its tasks. It’s a very solid poem- not particularly good, but not particularly bad. Let’s look at another typical BP poem:

Come-By-Chance

As I pondered very weary o'er a volume long and dreary --
For the plot was void of interest -- 'twas the Postal Guide, in fact,
There I learnt the true location, distance, size, and population
Of each township, town, and village in the radius of the Act.
And I learnt that Puckawidgee stands beside the Murrumbidgee,
And that Booleroi and Bumble get their letters twice a year,
Also that the post inspector, when he visited Collector,
Closed the office up instanter, and re-opened Dungalear.
But my languid mood forsook me, when I found a name that took me,
Quite by chance I came across it -- `Come-by-Chance' was what I read;
No location was assigned it, not a thing to help one find it,
Just an N which stood for northward, and the rest was all unsaid.
I shall leave my home, and forthward wander stoutly to the northward
Till I come by chance across it, and I'll straightway settle down,
For there can't be any hurry, nor the slightest cause for worry
Where the telegraph don't reach you nor the railways run to town.
And one's letters and exchanges come by chance across the ranges,
Where a wiry young Australian leads a pack-horse once a week,
And the good news grows by keeping, and you're spared the pain of weeping
Over bad news when the mailman drops the letters in the creek.
But I fear, and more's the pity, that there's really no such city,
For there's not a man can find it of the shrewdest folk I know,
`Come-by-chance', be sure it never means a land of fierce endeavour,
It is just the careless country where the dreamers only go.

Though we work and toil and hustle in our life of haste and bustle,
All that makes our life worth living comes unstriven for and free;
Man may weary and importune, but the fickle goddess Fortune
Deals him out his pain or pleasure, careless what his worth may be.
All the happy times entrancing, days of sport and nights of dancing,
Moonlit rides and stolen kisses, pouting lips and loving glance:
When you think of these be certain you have looked behind the curtain,
You have had the luck to linger just a while in `Come-by-chance'.

  On the surface this has some execrable music, & seems bad by even balladeering standards. But, remember that it takes off from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. The clichés, while there, are not as damning as they are when they appear in a poem by a contemporary poetaster. Why? Because the very doggerelized rhythm makes them sort of expected, if not needed to maintain the dittiness. The last 2 lines & the overall melancholy whimsy, however, are what make this a poem worth reading, if not savoring. Again, as with most of the SADs we’ve seen- this poem is utterly guileless. Let’s wrap up BP with a gander at his most famous poem-cum-song:

Waltzing Matilda

Oh, there once was a swagman camped in the billabong, 
Under the shade of a coolibah tree, 
And he sang as he looked at the old billy boiling, 
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me? 

Down came the jumbuck to drink at the water-hole, 
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee, 
And he sang as he put him away in his tucker-bag, 
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.

Chorus
 
Up came the Squatter a-ridding his thoroughbred, 
Up came Policemen - one, two and three, 
Whose is that jumbuck you've got in the tucker-bag, 
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me. 

Chorus
 
The swagman he up and he jumped in the water-hole, 
Drowning himself by the coolibah tree, 
And his ghost may be heard as it sings by the billabong, 
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

Chorus

  I know what you’re thinking: This song is a better poem than the previous 2 poems by BP. You are correct. But it’s still primarily a song lyric. What is its ‘poetic meaning’? Listen to the wonderfully musical words- & hopefully dash the song’s music, if you know it. Just read the words aloud. Again, this is so plainspoken & ‘out there’ that modern critics simply cannot approach poems like this without wanting to imbue something. But the obvious simplicity of the words does not allow that. It is guileless writing. But contemporary poetasters feed off of the critics’ desire to imbue. How many back book covers have you read where blurbs describe writing within that has absolutely nothing to do with said description? If you are starting to wince at my saying so, I apologize but my point is to emphasize that while these poems are not particularly good, they are not worse than most of the mainstream poetic crap put out by high-profile poetry presses. In a lot of cases (as I’ve shown) they are demonstrably better. Again, you know who mean- I will not give them free advertising.
  Let me now turn to the best poet in this particular lot- & easily the poet least deserving of being in this essay, because he is in no way, shape, nor form, a SAD- although unfairly tarred as 1. Unfortunately, without my mentioning him here few other critics would bother to deign a sniff. If you’ve noticed, I’ve snuck (or tried to) a real ‘poet’- or relative gem into each of these 4 lots. In the 1^st batch I argued more vociferously for Rod McKuen’s possibilities as a poet than Leonard Cohen’s. In the 2^nd I championed Richard Brautigan’s accomplishments over those of William McGonagall, Eugene Field, & Joyce Kilmer. In the last lot I extolled the occasional ‘true poetic excellence’ & poetic potential of Lewis Carroll over the trio he’s too often lumped with: Edgar Guest, Edward Lear, & Ogden Nash. Similarly John G. Neihardt’s inclusion with Robert Service, Banjo Paterson, & Cowboy Poets is more the laziness of critics in lumping things together by subject matter, rather than skill & accomplishment, for while JGN’s poems have a surface relation to the aforementioned- in quality they are a definite cut above. Part of the reason has to do with the view of JGN cast primarily via his 5 poem/part epic Cycle Of The West. Like most poets who have tried to write epopee on the American (Old) West, the whole Cycle suffers from being far too long with far too much dull & prosaic writing. That said, it should be countered that JGN’s bloated Cycle is a far better & more interesting poem than similar pseudo-epics as Ed Dorn’s piffle-laden Gunslinger, Sharon Doubiago’s aimlessly meandering Hard Country, or William Heyen’s prosaic minutiae-to-the-point-of-ridiculousness Crazy Horse In Stillness- all of which suffer from the same lack of concision. The poem that best matches the truly epical Cycle is probably Stephen Vincent Benét’s John Brown’s Body- although JBB is a better overall poem. But the Cycle has its moments, as do many of the shorter poems of good- or significantly better- quality. Here’s a sample of that quality:

The Morning Girl

Listen! All the world is still;
One bleared hour and night is gone.
See the lonely moon-washed hill
Lift its head to catch the dawn!

In the east the eager light
Sets the curtained dusk a-sag;
And all the royal robe of Night
Frays cheaply -- like a rag!

Once I felt a lifting joy
When I saw the day unfurl,
Watching, just a laughing boy,
For the Morning Girl.

Oft I met her in the dew
Face to face, her sapphire eyes
Burning on me through the blue
Of the morning skies.

Then her pure and dazzling breast
Made with joy my senses swoon,
As she burned from crest to crest
Upward to the noon.

Now no more I seek her shrine,
Seek no more her golden hair
Sparkling in the morning shine
And the purple air.

Comes no more the Morning Girl,
Glows not now her golden head,
When the clouds of dawn unfurl --
Purple, yellow, red.

Now the waning of the night
Means another day is near;
Just a haggard splotch of light,
A turning of the sphere!

Would that in the coming hour
I might be that boy who knew
Fragrant import of the flower,
Lyric impulse of the dew!

  Again- not a great poem- but much better than at 1^st glance. There are clichés, but JGN often inverts them. & the clichés do not overpower the poem’s strengths of music & good phrasing. Let’s 1^st acknowledge that this poem is more musical throughout than either RS’s or BP’s poems- not to mention the early tripe of W.B. Yeats (as we’ve seen)! Look at some of the great phrasings- ‘See the lonely moon-washed hill/Lift its head to catch the dawn!’- what a nice inversion of the expected; ‘Made with joy my senses swoon,/As she burned from crest to crest/Upward to the noon.’- another rescue from cliché. Dawn as ‘Just a haggard splotch of light,/A turning of the sphere!’. & the end with ‘Fragrant import of the flower,/Lyric impulse of the dew!’. This is a good poem- period. But we’ve seen the metaphor of the feminine with a piece of time before- right? Let us look at some more JGN poems, & compare them to earlier poems we’ve seen. Let’s do a side-by side with a fairly typical shorter JGN poem, & the best of Ogden Nash’s poems that we’ve examined. The difference will be stark: 

  I’ve already described how ON’s title & poetic punning make April a name, the month, & the month a metaphor for feminine nature. Beyond that, there is not much- it’s a sweet little poem. JGN’s poem gives a bit more, however. 1 need not have my poetic expertise to see that, like ON, JGN is punning off similar things- but how much more dark & dramatic this little poem is. Easily read as a sexual loss of purity poem the familiar seeming cliché: ‘dream come true’, really is not- it has menacing irony. Look at the brilliant last line’s inversion of the rose/maidenhead cliché. This poem is not as good a poem as Yeats’ great Leda & The Swan, but it is not too far off (& covers a lot of the same rape/power violation territory)- it really isn’t; especially if you look more closely than the average reader tends to. It is, in fact, a lot closer to Yeats’ poem than the typical poems by SADs we’ve seen. A poem like this plays off of the dyslexic quality of readers to fill in the gaps with the familiar when they stumble upon oft-repeated words, images, & phrases. Unfortunately, most readers stop with their dyslexia & poems this subtle often are overlooked. In truth, I admit being guilty of occasionally doing so, especially when reading a book filled with mediocre verse. Often, the few gems (relatively speaking) will slip me by. Let us now compare a wonderful 2 stanza JGN invocation to the Muse with that of an earlier SAD- Joyce Kilmer. But, think of the 100s of similar invocations you’ve read before, as well. Only a relative handful (read- couple of dozen) of published poems by the absolute Masters of the craft of Poetry are demonstrably better- & note the sex of JGN’s Muse!: 

  JK’s poem- well, aside from the outmoded language, it recapitulates things said in Muse poems from the cavemen through Wanda Coleman. JGN’s, however, deserves a deeper probe. Virtually every other line plays successfully off of, or inverts, a trite theme or hackneyed phrase. The masculine icon of the horse is, here, gaunt (read- flaccid, limp- OK?). A command is given to the ostensible Rider’s/Poet’s controlling body (Master-hand and –heel), which then definitively is seen as the Controlling Force: ‘Fling him, hurl him at the wire/Though he sob and bleed!/Play upon him as a lyre’. For eons the Muse has poetically been cast outside the Creator- but not here! Stanza 2 invokes Yahweh, Zeus, & Odin- yet really read what is occurring: ‘Letting all the heavens through,/And shuddering back to gloom!’. Here the art/lightning bolt does not destroy what it is within- instead, it frees itself into another realm- it is active- read MASCULINE! The last 5 lines (especially the last 2) are simply marvelous- if I need to explain this you are poetically hopeless! Perhaps I will retract my earlier excuses- this poem may very well be able to hold its own as a Muse invocation with anything ever penned by the Masters! Is the word great in the air? Let me compare another JGN poem to not that of a SAD, but to that of another poet (Carl Sandburg) derided by contemporary critics- although he still garners much more respect than any SAD, & much more name recognition than JGN. Remember, you’ve already pardoned these sins: 

  Both are very good poems- a real proponent of either could make some arguments for the greatness of both. I admire both poems- but no matter your opinion pro or con of each, WGN’s poem is better. Both deal directly with masculinity very directly- yet only CS’s poem is well-known. Let’s deal with both as if we were looking at both for the 1^st time- this may be easier for you readers than me! POS has 2 defining metaphors- the invocation to the eternal via a (then) new technology, & destruction begets creation. It has a nice conceit: God as steelworker, & its lone semi-cliché is ‘red-hot’- which is really & literally what the steel rivets are when building a skyscraper. The 4, 3, & 2 line stanza form, with increasing line lengths, really works well. The last line is 1 of the great all-time lines in poetry.
  Still, as excellent a little poem as POS is, I think JGN’s L’Envoi is a masterpiece equal to- NO!- better than POS! Each of its 5 stanzas contains excellence. Stanza 1’s 1^st line is a rather standard admonition- then the 1^st person speaker seems to subsume the tumulus (death) & pass through it. Stanza 2’s nice use of brother as a verb helps to animate & anthropomorphize the capitalized things- think of & contrast that stanza with CS’s own poem Grass. Bear in mind, the wonderful imagery & music. Stanza 3 starts with another admonition, & its weaker image of ‘sheathe/shroud’ is buoyed by the wonderful coinage of ‘joy-sword’. The masculine is bubbling over & the conceit of a damaged masculinity rising above is a great warrior boast & toast! But, as good a setup as this poem has had it’s the last 2 stanzas which are the great payoff. Just look at the phrasing in stanza 4- a totality of Oneness moving beyond this mortal world- magnificent! Stanza 5 then leaves 2 options: it’s all real & the speaker savors its fruition, & compares it to praying. Or the whole preceding poem reveals the speaker’s orgasmic masculine piety as prayer itself. It can be read either way- this is a great poem. Plus, the little abrupt ½ line that ends the poem is a slammin’ effect that whets the reader for another possible stanza’s go-round. There’s the pier if you disagree!
  But, JGN could also hit a home run with more overt religiosity. I am not religious in any way, but appreciate the good verse of all sorts of religious poets- from Rumi through Jessica Powers. JGN’s best is right there with them. Hint- Joyce Kilmer could never have penned this poem:

Easter 

Once more the northbound Wonder
Brings back the goose and crane,
Prophetic Sons of Thunder,
Apostles of the Rain.

In many a battling river
The broken gorges boom;
Behold, the Mighty Giver
Emerges from the tomb!

Now robins chant the story
Of how the wintry sward
Is litten with the glory
Of the Angel of the Lord.

His countenance is lightning
And still His robe is snow,
As when the dawn was brightening
Two thousand years ago.

O who can be a stranger
To what has come to pass?
The Pity of the Manger
Is mighty in the grass!

Undaunted by Decembers,
The sap is faithful yet.
The giving Earth remembers,
And only men forget.

  This is a bit more overt than L’Envoi, & clearly not as good a poem (it has some clichés that are simply not inverted) - but it is still a quality piece of poetry that deals with very similar subject matter & imagery. Another by WGN:

Let Me Live Out My Years   

Let me live out my years in heat of blood!
Let me die drunken with the dreamer's wine!
Let me not see this soul-house built of mud
Go toppling to the dusk—a vacant shrine.

Let me go quickly, like a candle light
Snuffed out just at the heyday of its glow.
Give me high noon—and let it then be night!
Thus would I go.

And grant that when I face the grisly Thing,
My song may trumpet down the gray Perhaps.
Let me be as a tune-swept fiddlestring
That feels the Master Melody—and snaps!

  This poem uses the abruption that worked so well to end L’Envoi in all 3 stanzas. The recapitulation of title/1^st line is a downer at 1^st- but this poem is about negation. The 1^st line’s reinforcement seems to serve the purpose of setting up the initial images for even harsher comeuppances. The 1^st 2 lines of seeming cliché in the poem are put in a different light by lines 3 & 4. A similar presentation of the familiar negated occurs in the 2^nd stanza- which snaps back even more quickly. But stanza 3 is another JGN marvel. The last abruption/negation is killer!
  How, then, did this often excellent poet get not only pilloried, at 1^st, but then nearly totally erased from American Poetry’s consciousness? Clearly, it seems both his subject matter & formalist bent are the culprits. The former allowed for easy lumping with RS & BP & that ilk, while the latter allowed lazy critics to write him off as too retro (as well his penchant for epopee). Even contemporary formalists do not recognize anyone after Frost & before Richard Wilbur. Clearly JGN has not been deserving of the abuse, derision, & neglect often heaped upon him. An interesting sidelight in writing this essay was that in online searches I could find derisive comments on the poetry of all the SADs within- that’s because it’s so ubiquitous. I simply chose to not give air to such bad thought & writing. The lone exception was old JGN- not because he is not routinely dismissed, but because he is so neglected no critics even bother to nitpick at his wordly bones. I must confess that I am guilty of a prior neglect as well. Although Cosmoetica has a whole page devoted to Neglected Poets of worth, even I neglected to include JGN on that page. I shall remedy that shortly, however. But, while JGN’s Western-tinged verse is forgotten, there is another group of poets that has seen a Renaissance in the last decade or so- booning especially with the advent of the Internet: Cowboy Poetry! Far closer to RS & BP than JGN, CP may be the ultimate self-aware verse still being written. I won’t spend too much space on it (nor its revered Bards: Bret Harte & Joaquin Miller- for I need only recap my comments on RS & BP, for the most part!) since to criticize it is almost antithetical to its existence. Here’s some of ‘that ilk’. This poem is by 1 of the better known contemporary CPs, in fact- a Lariat Laureate!:

"I'm sellin' my saddle come winter"
I remember the words my dad said
but dad cashed in later that summer,
that saddle became mine instead.

The horse that he rode was the comp'ny's
but the saddle was his all alone,
he prided himself in its keepin'
the finest one he'd ever owned.

From sunup to sunset for ten years
and that saddle was his second home,
of custom-made leather from Texas
it suited both cowboy and roan.

The first time I cinched up that saddle
I remember the fit and the feel,
those wide Texas stirrups so sturdy
steam-molded for boot and for heel.

The saddle-horn larger and stronger
for the ropin' and holdin' it done,
the fit of the seat and the cantle,
a man and a horse moved as one.

At night when the day's work was over
and that saddle would pillow my head
I'd think on the cowboy who left it
rememb'rin' the words that he said.

A man all alone with his mem'ries
'bout a cowboy he loved as a lad
a part of his life still remainin'
that Texas-made saddle of dad's.

For twenty-some years it's been mine now
from the wearin' and use it's grown thin,
I'm sellin' that saddle come winter
then waitin' for time to cash in.

  A good poem? No. But doggerel? No. Merely a mediocre-to-bad poem. A classic situation is met- the memory of a loved 1 relayed by an artifact of that love. The music of the poem is hit & miss- it should be smoother given its quatrain form & banal subject matter (after all- he’s not riding a wild bull!). But, to Academics who abhor this stuff with its slang & sentiment I submit for opposition its equal or worse in every middle-aged white Midwestern male’s poem on fishing with a male relative, or an urban minority female’s poem about a lost love (male or female!). They are all the same poem essentially. The derision that a poem like this gets is flat-out artistic bigotry. RN’s poetry may not be good, but it at least deserves the respect of an up-front negative engagement! There are also Cowgirl Poets. Here’s a sample from 1 of the founders of the influential Cowboy Poetry Gathering:

Old Anne
Copyright © by Teresa Jordan

The arm that hadn't healed right would not bend
to hold a hairbrush. "Hack it off!"
Old Anne said of her braid, that braid like blood
flung from the heart, so long a part of her,
that thick grey snake slung heavy down her back.
Young Charlotte, wide-eyed Charlotte, stroked the shears,
reached out her hand to touch the braid, drew back -
"Please, child," Anne said, "don't be afraid to help me."
So Charlotte cut, and Old Anne closed her grey
sun-tired eyes. The hacking made her think
of falling, the colt falling, rain-soaked limestone soil
slick as oil -- slicker -- and a boulder field
cut jagged at the bottom of the hill.
The heavy braid hung loosely now by just a few thin strands;
The scissors sawed one last time through, it fell.
The soft thud she remembered just before
she woke, before the pain set in; the young horse,
stunned on top of her, had just begun to twitch.

  This is not a typical Cowboy poem, nor a typical feminine hair/braiding poem. The bulk of the poem takes place inside Old Anne’s mind- a memory of some horse-riding accident that left her severely injured somehow. The “Hack it off!” in line 2 signals a suppressed rage that we later learn the genesis of. The poem has some clichés, & uneven music, but it is remarkably mawkless. We end up stuck at that ‘moment’ that won’t recede for Old Anne. This is certainly not a great poem- but it’s not too bad, & much better than the usual Cowboy poetry. Perhaps a feminine aspect helps? In this poem, yes- but other Cowgirls write poetry indistinguishable from their male peers. In content & approach (but not skillery) this poem could have been penned by Robinson Jeffers. It’s most interesting feature may be its title- in Cowboy Poetry a title with the word ‘old’ in it is not unique. But this poem’s title goes beyond its use as throwaway adjective. There’s a fundamental reason for the word- that being to emphasize the duration of Anne’s pain & memory- & her mood swings. Trust me when I say I’ve seen a whole lot worse come from both Academics & Outsiders poesizing in a similar vein. While RN’s poem is typical in approach & achievement, & TJ’s is not, I could not write of Cowboy Poetry without a sample of what it is most known for- humor (of the lowest common denominator sort):

Benny Reynolds’ Bareback Riggin’
Copyright © by Paul Zarzyski

A bacon slab a-boiled black in oil every day
Ain't as soggy as the surcingle he folds whatever way

He wants to, heck, it always has sprung back
Like a flapping magic bird pulled from his riggin' sack,

Pre-rosined, and fit directly to the withers of a bare
As if slipping on his socks, there's never a scare

In his wrinkle-less face - those are laugh lines! -
And no matter what he draws, he never frets or whines

Or paces, he just climbs aboard and shakes his face
And takes to raking like he's in a race

To stay one big lick ahead of old-man time
Who can't figure any reason, can't savvy any rhyme

To the way this rodeo-arena George Burns
Keeps on smoking 'em, how he never learns

That he's older than petrified dinosaur poop -
Did he "Cowboy?" or did he "Caveman?" with Alley Oop

Back when he and glaciers together first cracked out
In the Mesozoic era when stock was Flintstone stout

When they had to strap a muzzle on Tyrannosaurus Rex
Or you'd lose a leg or two, and talk about your wrecks!

Those pile-driving reptiles hit the ground with force
And mass a thousand times that of a feathered horse

Bounced a fan from the front row to a nose bleed seat
You had to get hold of your holts, you had to use your feet

Whether you was entered up, or you was there to watch
Benny Reynolds setting this same riggin' in the scale notch

Between the first and second spike-ed dorsal fin
Of some big ol' thorny lizard he spurred hard enough to win

Just like he does today, with lots of rapid gap
Those dinos had some girth so you damn sure had to tap

Off on that first squalling hop, or good-by screws
That snub your riggin' handhold to its body, and you'd lose

Your gripper, and get back-doored and likely whaled
A shuttlecock badmintoned by a thrashing three-ton tail

Which is why, I'll bet, three wraps of rusty bailing wire
Is what's holding Benny's handhold on, I could inquire

But I hate to seem a greenhorn, wet behind the ears
Regardless of the umpteen hundred dozen years,

Or eons, that seperate our riding gear and style
Of psychin'-up - I'm a nervous wreck, Benny's one big smile!

And once I even saw him place a snoosey, juicy smooch
Upon the cheek of Kesler's pick-up man, not even hooch

Could loosen me enough for such flamboyant flair and flirt
Besides, I mostly pick myself up, I mostly kiss the dirt

BUT WHY? My riggin's up to date with each space-age part
Tailor-made, fit-to-form, state of the art

High-tech Precision, the bareback Cadillac of rigs
Aerodynamically perfected like the Russkies build their MIGs

Not prehistoric Pterodactyls, the only thing that flew
Awkward as a tailless kite, back when Benny's rig was "new"

It's time to shine some light on this riddle I've spun,
I'll rub the maker's stamp with spit and tilt it toward the sun

I swear it won't Surprise me, I'm ready to believe
It's built "Adam's Saddlery" from snakehide tanned by Eve.

  OK, this is genuine doggerel- but ain’t it a hoot? The whole point of this essay has been to show that these SADs are not just a gray faceless mass to be tossed aside, rather poets of varying stature whose poems reflect that diversity. From PZ’s poop to JGN’s excellence- at the very least, if you still sneer at these SADs, now it can be a discriminating sneer.

Endgame

  The same hope might be voiced for the entirety of SADs in this essay. We’ve seen me utterly smash some preconceptions, & severely injure others. I started this sojourn by referencing Robert Peters’ excellent but overlooked essay On Divining Rod: McKuen In The Pantheon. I will end it in the same place. Part of the problem with why these SADs have been dealt their lots is the sheer laziness of American Poetry Criticism (APC). Another factor is basic resentment felt for these SADs by most poets of all stripes. These SADs are not the poetic desiderata/chimera of the willfully marginal. Virtually all of them have experienced popular & financial success well beyond all but a handful of history’s ‘serious’ poets. Furthermore, these SADs not only experienced such success, but they unabashedly courted it- & succeeded in their woo! Part of their self-awareness was that they knew they would be marginalized in literata, so they damned the consequences! Their bootstrapping pick-me-up tales are a near mirror image of the willfully marginal poets (workshoppers/street poets/ -istic devotees/Outsiders/ Nuyoricans, etc.) who whine & long to get on the NEA Gravy Train. These poets, in fact, secretly adore the backhand recognition they get for their whining, for they know exposed to real scrutiny their poems will prove as- or more- crappy than the SADs- this is a great resentment causer. They, in fact, revel in their ‘fame’ for being marginal- or ‘emerging’. Even when they eventually drop out of publication they can blame the ‘conspiracy’ against them, & their kind. Therefore- the willfully marginal seek to stand out by disassociating themselves from their clones, & conversely try to blend the SADs into 1 toxic gray stew. It’s amazingly silly how absurdly niggling differences are reckoned between the crap of a Donald Hall & a Galway Kinnell, or a Miguel Piñero & a Jimmy Santiago Baca, but not between a Lewis Carroll & an Ogden Nash, or a Robert Service & a Banjo Paterson. Then, again, it’s really easy- the latter quartet were/are all part of the system derisively & collectively known as Po Biz. & not 1 of the critics charged with commenting on Po Biz has taken the time to pick up RP’s gauntlet….Until now- & hopefully, I have slapped a few cheeks red, & done it- & RP- justice!

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