See Also:

Spring Fever, Flyfishing, And Romance.
The Bait, By John Donne

Before we get into the project itself, let me explain a little bit more about how The Bait came to be. It is my understanding that John Donne had been reading some poetry by Christopher Marlowe, a contemporary of Shakespeare and had come across The Passionate Shepherd To His Love. Donne apparently decided to write a bit of a parody on Marlowe's work, and copying the rythm and metre, wrote The Bait. Note that the second line of Donne's poem: '...some new pleasures prove'. Donne obviously realized that pleasures involving golden sands, crystal brooks, lines and hooks were at least as good those involving valleys, groves, hills and fields.

As mentioned earlier, even Walton enjoyed Donne's work, but he also managed to work Marlowe into The Compleat Angler as well. In the chapter on the Third Day, we find the Milk Woman reciting The Passionate Shepherd, only it is now called The Milkmaid's Song and one verse has been added and some of the lines paraphrased.

After reading Donne's work several years ago, and discovering how it came about, I decided to set pen to paper and test my own skills at creating a work based on similar themes and metre as Donne and Marlowe. What resulted was my work which I entitled "The Passionate Non-Poet To His Love". I realize that any literary student will recognize the amateurish poetry as written by someone who will never approach the genius of Donne, but it was fun nonetheless.

The other evening, after spending a day in the cold rain and trying to catch Rainbow Trout and whatever else might be in the Rouge River or Bowmanville Creek of Southern Ontario, I got to thinking that it would be a fun project to have all of you participate in the creation of a new poem that had had a strong flyfishing theme and even perhaps a bit of romance thrown in for good poetical measure. We have a great message board that we can use where all of you can read the previous posters lines, and then add your own continuing lines. I will start us off, paraphrasing the first two lines of Donne and Marlowe, and now its up to you all to help create the classic flyfishing poem of the 21st century!

Let's put some collective conciousness to work here and have some fun along the way!

Here's the first two lines and you can click on them to go to the message board to immortalize your own poetic lines on the Internet!

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some angling pleasures prove
.....

Of course, if you have already written your own flyfishing poetry, feel free to post it to the board for all of us to enjoy!

Need some more inspiration? Take a look at The Angler's Song

Related Links:

The Compleat Angler by Izaac Walton - The compleat text, on-line.
Poetry at About.com - Guides Bob Holman and Margery Snyder guide you through everything about poetry.
Classical Literature - About.com's Floramaria Deter guides you through classical literature.

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A review of some great tools available from Golden Witch Technologies, an eclectic company that also produces graphite and cane rods.

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