A Poem For All The Publishers Who Say “No Poetry”

I’ve looked it up a million times –
(a little bit of overstatement never hurts)
I think in meter, think in rhyme.
It suits my temperament.  Reverts
To chimes of nursery rhymes
Instinctive in us all –
This call to childhood’s guiltlessness.
Yet publishers of good repute
Refute this claim
And to their shame,
Their snobbish, profiteering shame,
Say No to poetry.

We should attack!
Abundant in attractiveness are we.
Ever clever, disciplined;
Deep, reflecting all reality:
And yet they say, “NO POETRY,
DO NOT SEND POETRY”.
Refused, rejected
Are we bards dejected?
Never!
We go on forever,
Eager in our hunger.

While you publishers go under,
We are there, bad, corny, muted,
Understated and astut-ed;
Couplets, meters, forms abstract,
Highbrow, lowbrow, autodidact:
Rumbling on like thunder.

A Poem For All You Publishers Who Say “No Poetry” 12.21.2016
A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Our Times, Our Culture II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin