Scott Bates, cheerleading for solar power and electric cars.
“The Ballad of Bathtub Gin” looks back to the days of Appalachian moonshine.
Where are the toys of yesteryear? Such is the lament of this poem by Scott Bates.
This Scott Bates poem protesting aerial killing machines could apply to today’s drone program.
Literature played a major role in my father’s World War II experiences.
Here’s a poem challenging criticism that undermines the poet.
In Scott Bates’s updated nativity scene, there is no room for Mary and Josephn in the Holiday Inn.
Applying “Hichhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” to the nativity scene opens up interesting perspectives on the animals that are present.
Gun control is difficult because certain Americans have almost a sexual relationship with guns.
The Christmas nativity scene is less Christian than devout Christians realize.
In this Scott Bates fantasy, a renegade scholar breaks library protocol with a bright red yo-yo.
As Scott Bates sees it, trees in autumn are involved in a joyous striptease.
Scott Bates proves an environmentalist’s revenge fantasy against those violating the earth.
In this Scott Bates poem, a dream of flying frees us from life’s frustrations.
Scott Bates’s ABC of Radical Ecology calls for us to keep fighting to save the environment.
In protest against laboring children, Scott Bates imagines the letter “L” going on strike.
French poet Frédéric Mistral dreams of wild horses breaking free of civilization’s fetters.
This Scott Bates looks at Pentecostal snake handlers from the snake’s point of view.
Scott Bates’s “The Perfect Toad” may be a fable about peak experiences.
The clerihew form can wittily articulate major theological questions.
Tom Robbins and Scott Bates regard the mockingbird as an emblem for the consummate artist.
In honor of upcoming Earth Day, I share a poem based on an actual incidents where hundred of rabbits released to be hunted by Napoleon turned on the emperor’s party and routed them.
In this Scott Bates poem, the poetry of basketball is surpassed by the poetry of frisbee throwing.
“As the robin singeth after rain,” so are we all singing after the birth of my first grandchild.
A Scott Bates poem about Mother Jones may be timely as we see the rise of a leftwing populism.
Updating Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, Scott Bates imagines a soldier who takes a principled stand and refuses to participate.
A Scott Bates version of the “Holly and Ivy” carol shows how multiple religious traditions blend seamlessly in Christmas rituals.
Scott Bates’s “The Night before Christmas on the Moon” delightfully sets Clement Moore’s beloved poem in a lunar landscape.
Here’s a non-Christmas tree poem by Scott Bates for friends of the environment.
Two Scott Bates animal fables cast a skeptical eye on idealists seeking a transcendent truth.
World War II vet Scott Bates remembers the war far differently from the images we have of it–not as heroic but as “people surrounded by dying men.”
