Tag Archives: Scott Bates

Cats as Transformation Artists

By Robin Bates | Published: January 11, 2014

This Jean Cocteau poems captures the mercurial nature of cats.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Cat", cats, Jean Cocteau | Comments closed

Christmas Bird Count from Santa’s Sleigh

By Robin Bates | Published: December 26, 2013

This joyous Scott Bates birdwatching poem imagines Santa’s Blitzen involved in Audubon’s annual tally.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Annual Christmas Bird Count of Blitzen", Audubon Christmas bird count, bird watching, Birds, Nature | Comments closed

Where Are the Games of Yesteryear?

By Robin Bates | Published: December 25, 2013

Christmas I shared “Ballad of the Games of Yesteryear” this past spring when my father temporarily lapsed into dementia. But he wrote it as a Christmas poem and so I’m posting it again as I mourn the first Christmas spent without him. Now that he is dead, the poem contains special meaning, echoing as it […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Ballad of the Ladies of Bygone Times", "Ballad of the Toys of Yesteryear", Christmas, death and dying, Francois Villon, nostalgie | Comments closed

Letters from Mrs. Santa Claus

By Robin Bates | Published: December 19, 2013

Two Scott Bates Christmas poems show Santa on the move, thanks to the melting of the polar ice caps.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Letter from the Moon", "Letter from the North Pole", Christmas, Santa Claus | Comments closed

If Oz Became Modern Day America

By Robin Bates | Published: December 9, 2013

This Scott Bates poem revisits the Land of Oz and finds that modern America has broken out.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Letter from Oz", Christmas, gun control, NRA, Planned Parenthood, Santa Claus | Comments closed

Two Parables Involving Falling Leaves

By Robin Bates | Published: November 8, 2013

Scott Bates and Lucille Clifton find poetic lessons in falling leaves.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Existentialist Leaf", "lesson of the falling leaves", Albert Camus, Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, existentialism, Freedom, Jean Anouilh, Jean Paul Sartre, Lucille Clifton, Samuel Beckett | Comments closed

Trippin’ Out and Dreamin’ of Utopia

By Robin Bates | Published: November 1, 2013

This psychedelic Scott Bates poem, written in 1970, dreams of a better world.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Peyote Bean", drugs, peyote, Sixties, war on drugs | Comments closed

My Father Moved through Dooms of Love

By Robin Bates | Published: October 21, 2013

At my father’s memorial service, we read poems by e.e. cummings, Shakespeare, Jacques Prévert, and my father himself.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged death and dying, Tempest, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Farewell to the Boy with the Golden Crown

By Robin Bates | Published: October 20, 2013

Yesterday at my father’s memorial service I read ones of his poems about the recurrent cycle of life.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Christianity, death and dying, mythology | Comments closed