• Submit Poetry
  • Support SCP
  • About Us
  • Members
  • Join
Thursday, May 14, 2026
Society of Classical Poets
  • Poems
    • Beauty
    • Culture
    • Satire
    • Humor
    • Children’s
    • Art
    • Ekphrastic
    • Epic
    • Epigrams and Proverbs
    • Human Rights in China
    • Music
    • Performing Arts
    • Riddles
    • Science
    • Song Lyrics
    • The Environment
    • The Raven
    • Found Poems
    • High School Poets
    • Terrorism
    • Covid-19
  • Poetry Forms
    • Sonnet
    • Haiku
    • Limerick
    • Villanelle
    • Rondeau
    • Pantoum
    • Sestina
    • Triolet
    • Acrostic
    • Alexandroid
    • Alliterative
    • Blank Verse
    • Chant Royal
    • Clerihew
    • Rhupunt
    • Rondeau Redoublé
    • Rondel
    • Rubaiyat
    • Sapphic Verse
    • Shape Poems
    • Terza Rima
  • Great Poets
    • Geoffrey Chaucer
    • Emily Dickinson
    • Homer
    • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
    • Dante Alighieri
    • John Keats
    • John Milton
    • Edgar Allan Poe
    • William Shakespeare
    • William Wordsworth
    • William Blake
    • Robert Frost
  • Love Poems
  • Contests
  • SCP Academy
    • Educational
    • Teaching Classical Poetry—A Guide for Educators
    • Poetry Forms
    • The SCP Journal
    • Books
No Result
View All Result
Society of Classical Poets
  • Poems
    • Beauty
    • Culture
    • Satire
    • Humor
    • Children’s
    • Art
    • Ekphrastic
    • Epic
    • Epigrams and Proverbs
    • Human Rights in China
    • Music
    • Performing Arts
    • Riddles
    • Science
    • Song Lyrics
    • The Environment
    • The Raven
    • Found Poems
    • High School Poets
    • Terrorism
    • Covid-19
  • Poetry Forms
    • Sonnet
    • Haiku
    • Limerick
    • Villanelle
    • Rondeau
    • Pantoum
    • Sestina
    • Triolet
    • Acrostic
    • Alexandroid
    • Alliterative
    • Blank Verse
    • Chant Royal
    • Clerihew
    • Rhupunt
    • Rondeau Redoublé
    • Rondel
    • Rubaiyat
    • Sapphic Verse
    • Shape Poems
    • Terza Rima
  • Great Poets
    • Geoffrey Chaucer
    • Emily Dickinson
    • Homer
    • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
    • Dante Alighieri
    • John Keats
    • John Milton
    • Edgar Allan Poe
    • William Shakespeare
    • William Wordsworth
    • William Blake
    • Robert Frost
  • Love Poems
  • Contests
  • SCP Academy
    • Educational
    • Teaching Classical Poetry—A Guide for Educators
    • Poetry Forms
    • The SCP Journal
    • Books
No Result
View All Result
Society of Classical Poets
No Result
View All Result
Home Poetry Culture

‘A Rant’: A Poem by Reid McGrath

August 27, 2025
in Culture, Poetry
A A
6
poems 'A Rant': A Poem by Reid McGrath

.

A Rant

.

I.

Pay for a surrogate to birth you a kid.
Feed it on formula falsely construed.
Drop it in daycare for hours on end;
shunt it to public-school where it’s imbued

with half-truths of History and little lies
fostered by doctors deluded or dumb.
The Mission: to keep it vegetablized—
perpetually sucking Society’s thumb.

Burdened with debt and no practical skills,
renting and loafing the weekends goodbye,
depressed and diseased the ephemeral thrills
dampen and darken and mildew and die.

.

II.

Or you can find a fecund little wife:
who loves you with all of her soul and her heart
a sourdough savage—wielding a knife—
a real renegade: devout and stalwart.

Delivering babies without any drugs
and suckling them on the milk of her breast,
homeschooling heroes and not whiney thugs;
and this is what, friends, will rescue the West.

Raised in the School of Beauty and Truth,
of Faith and Reason and farming and fun,
hunting and fishing and learning their tooth
might get knocked out but they’ll never be done…

.

.

Reid McGrath lives and writes in the Hudson Valley Region of New York.

ShareTweetPin
The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary.
Read Our Comments Policy Here

RandomPoems

‘Diocletian’s Horse’ and Other Poetry by Duane Caylor
Poetry

‘Diocletian’s Horse’ and Other Poetry by Duane Caylor

November 21, 2025

Diocletian’s Horse “Save it for your horse.” ---Oedipus Tex, P.D.Q. Bach (Peter Schickele) While Diocletian owned the home Octavian built...

‘Turbines’: A Non-Environmental Poem by Jeff Eardley
Culture

‘Turbines’: A Non-Environmental Poem by Jeff Eardley

July 22, 2021

. They lie in serried ranks above the strand. These mighty, whirling monsters made of steel. Where once, a couple...

Next Post
Two More Lyrics of Philodemus of Gadara, Translated by Joseph S. Salemi

Two More Lyrics of Philodemus of Gadara, Translated by Joseph S. Salemi

‘A Reason for Hope’ and Other Poetry by C.B. Anderson

'A Reason for Hope' and Other Poetry by C.B. Anderson

The Society of Classical Poets 2025 Haiku Competition

The Best Haiku of 2025: Winners of the 2025 SCP Haiku Competition

Comments 6

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson says:
    9 months ago

    Trenchant and poignant poem that dazzles with the brilliant light of truth.

    Reply
    • Reid McGrath says:
      9 months ago

      Thank you, guys.

      Reply
  2. Jordan says:
    9 months ago

    Well done. A fine critique of our “modernity.” In Australia there was a scandal of child sexual abuse at a childcare centre. One man abused scores of children. The government pushes and pushes for children to go straight to daycare so mum can work. C sections are incentivised leaving mother and baby without the benefits of natural birth. The list goes on and on.

    I appreciate your nod to the courageous woman, the “sourdough savage” I absolutely love it and am blessed to have a wonderful wife.

    Reply
  3. James Sale says:
    9 months ago

    The vitriol of truth flows, Reid – nice work!

    Reply
  4. Paul A. Freeman says:
    9 months ago

    Isn’t there a middle road, allowing a mother to have a career rather than become ‘a fecund little wife’?

    And as for home schooling, not everyone has the ability to impart knowledge. And then there’s the danger of imbuing our children with our own prejudices, denying them friends and acquaintances outside the tradlife utopia, and leaving them socially inept clones of ourselves.

    School systems aren’t perfect and not every woman (or man) is fertile enough to produce a brood, nor perhaps wants to produce a brood.

    Your poem(s) leaves us much to think about. One interesting fact is that my kids tended to recognise bias and bad at school, something we could talk about together and which gave my kids confidence.

    Thanks for the read, Reid.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson says:
      8 months ago

      I applaud you, Paul, for being so consistent: always the asshole! Your wisdom could fit inside an ampule filled with fairy dust, with room to spare. It’s sad that you somehow managed to reproduce.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. Cynthia L Erlandson on ‘To May, the Prince of Months’ by Eustache Deschamps, Translated by Margaret CoatsMay 14, 2026

    So beautiful! I was enjoying all of your wonderful slant rhymes for “nature”, and then saw that those in the…

  2. Joseph S. Salemi on ‘To May, the Prince of Months’ by Eustache Deschamps, Translated by Margaret CoatsMay 14, 2026

    A very nice rendering of Eustache, and one that must have taken a great deal of work to maintain the…

  3. Roy Eugene Peterson on ‘To May, the Prince of Months’ by Eustache Deschamps, Translated by Margaret CoatsMay 14, 2026

    Margaret, your translation talents are amazing. Your manipulation of each line is masterful to achieve such effective rhymes in English…

  4. Margaret brinton on ‘To May, the Prince of Months’ by Eustache Deschamps, Translated by Margaret CoatsMay 14, 2026

    This is very beautiful, Margaret C., and it brings to mind the wisteria and jacaranda blossoms that greet me on…

  5. Alec Ream on A Poem on Coach “Black Mike” Castronis from Athens Y Camp, by Alec ReamMay 14, 2026

    Col Roy, you got it. Places like Alpine Texas and Tallulah Falls Georgia are not just places, they are formation…

Subscribe to Daily Poems

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,593 other subscribers

Recent Poems

  • ‘To May, the Prince of Months’ by Eustache Deschamps, Translated by Margaret Coats
  • Winners of Friends of Falun Gong 2026 Poetry Competition Announced
  • A Poem on Coach “Black Mike” Castronis from Athens Y Camp, by Alec Ream
  • A Poem on the Zambian National Park Mosi-oa-Tunya, by Paul A. Freeman
  • ‘Creation of Mom’: A Mother’s Day Poem by Roy E. Peterson
  • ‘Spontaneous Conjugal Combustion’ and Other Poems by Susan Jarvis Bryant
  • ‘The Man in the Moon Was a Very Round Man’: A Poem by Lauren V. Leon
  • ‘Fibromytrauma’: A Poem by Golan Shahar
  • ‘A Lonely Sliver’: A Poem by Katie Tencza
  • ‘Higher Gas Prices Are a Small Price to Pay’: An Iran War Poem by Mark F. Stone
  • ‘Always Ahead’: A Poem by Scharlie Meeuws
  • ‘Hamlet’s Lawyer’ and Other Poetry by Brian Yapko
  • ‘On An Old Photograph’: A Poem by Joseph S. Salemi
  • ‘Faust Foresees His End’: A Poem by Martin Briggs
  • ‘À la Carte’ and Other Poetry by C.B. Anderson
  • ‘Where the Sweet Bluebonnets Bloom’: A Poem by Roy E. Peterson
  • ‘The Waters’: A Poem by Margaret Brinton
  • ‘The Pinnacle of Poetry’ and Other Poems by Russel Winick
  • The First American Sonnets: An Essay on David Humphreys, by Margaret Coats
  • ‘The Holy Rollers on Poetry’: A Poem by Joseph S. Salemi
  • Sappho’s ‘Poem 1’ Translated by Bruce Phenix
  • ‘The Cautionary Tale of Phone Addicted Mimi’: A Poem by Paul A. Freeman
  • ‘Look Away’: A Poem for America’s 250th Anniversary, by Roger Crane
  • ‘Sunday Morning in Canada’: A Poem by Jeffrey Essmann
  • ‘Bean’: A Poem by Jan Mennite
  • ‘The Swan’s Song ’: A Poem for Shakespeare’s Birthday, by Susan Jarvis Bryant
  • ‘The Gravedigger’: A Poem by Marie Burdett
  • ‘Waiting for the Perfect Man’: A Poem by Janice Canerdy
  • ‘The George-A-Saurus’ and Other Poetry by Brian Yapko
  • ‘When Asked: What’s Your Favorite Season?’: A Poem by Paul Millan  

Categories

  • Acrostic
  • Alexandroid
  • Alliterative
  • Art
  • Best Poems
  • Blank Verse
  • Chant Royal
  • Classical Poets Live
  • Clerihew
  • Covid-19
  • Deconstructing Communism
  • Educational
  • Epic
  • Epigrams and Proverbs
  • Essays
    • Interviews with Poets
    • Poetry Reviews
  • Featured
  • From the Society
  • Great Poets
    • Dante Alighieri
    • Edgar Allan Poe
    • Emily Dickinson
    • Geoffrey Chaucer
    • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
    • Homer
    • John Keats
    • John Milton
    • Robert Frost
    • William Blake
    • William Shakespeare
    • William Wordsworth
  • Human Rights in China
  • Limerick
  • Love Poems
  • Music
  • Pantoum
  • Performing Arts
  • Poetry
    • Beauty
    • Children's Poems
    • Culture
    • Ekphrastic
    • Found Poems
    • High School Poets
    • Humor
    • Riddles
  • Poetry Challenge
  • Poetry Contests
  • Poetry Forms
    • Curtal Sonnet
    • Haiku
  • Poetry Readings
  • Rhupunt
  • Rondeau
  • Rondeau Redoublé
  • Rondel
  • Rubaiyat
  • Sapphic Verse
  • Satire
  • Science
  • Sestina
  • Shape Poems
  • Short Stories
  • Song Lyrics
  • Sonnet
  • Symposium
  • Terrorism
  • Terza Rima
  • The Environment
  • Translation
  • Triolet
  • Video
  • Villanelle

Quick Links

  • About Us
  • Submit Poetry
  • Become a Member
  • Members List
  • Support the Society
  • Advertisement Placement
  • Comments Policy
  • Terms of Use

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Poems
    • Beauty
    • Culture
    • Satire
    • Humor
    • Children’s
    • Art
    • Ekphrastic
    • Epic
    • Epigrams and Proverbs
    • Human Rights in China
    • Music
    • Performing Arts
    • Riddles
    • Science
    • Song Lyrics
    • The Environment
    • The Raven
    • Found Poems
    • High School Poets
    • Terrorism
    • Covid-19
  • Poetry Forms
    • Sonnet
    • Haiku
    • Limerick
    • Villanelle
    • Rondeau
    • Pantoum
    • Sestina
    • Triolet
    • Acrostic
    • Alexandroid
    • Alliterative
    • Blank Verse
    • Chant Royal
    • Clerihew
    • Rhupunt
    • Rondeau Redoublé
    • Rondel
    • Rubaiyat
    • Sapphic Verse
    • Shape Poems
    • Terza Rima
  • Great Poets
    • Geoffrey Chaucer
    • Emily Dickinson
    • Homer
    • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
    • Dante Alighieri
    • John Keats
    • John Milton
    • Edgar Allan Poe
    • William Shakespeare
    • William Wordsworth
    • William Blake
    • Robert Frost
  • Love Poems
  • Contests
  • SCP Academy
    • Educational
    • Teaching Classical Poetry—A Guide for Educators
    • Poetry Forms
    • The SCP Journal
    • Books

© 2025 SCP. WebDesign by CODEC Prime.