By A Country Mile
Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter premiered
Ya-Ya, Jolene, Flamenco, Dolly P
And twenty-three more tracks. The album fared
Commendably. It reached the apogee
Of country music charts, with catchy chords
Unique within the sphere. But it would snag
No nominations for the top awards
This year. Is Texas Hold ‘Em not their bag? …
Reporters said Beyoncé got a snub,
Yet many experts knew low airplay might
Mean voters loyal to the country club
Ignored Beyoncé’s songs. But Bey, despite
Low airplay, leads the field. And since her style
Enthrals, she’s leading by a country mile!
Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, The Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, MONO, the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, the Washington Post and WestWard Quarterly. The poem was prompted by the NBC story “Why was Beyoncé snubbed by the Country Music Association Awards? Experts cite a few reasons.”