The Recent Yokel Projects

The Yokel Songs are a preposterously large body of work, spanning 2017 through the present End Times that began January 6 2021--more than seven hundred poems.

I have written no new Yokel Songs since September of 2023 (about another 40 in winter 2026); however, I have spent many hours editing the eleven Chakra-lly-sorted Yokel Song collections and culling them--and then making separate collection out of the most erotics collections--the ones called Gender Affirmation in the End Times and The Yokel's End Times Footsie Drag--and then restoring to the Selected Pretty and Selected Trans Yokel books many songs from the longer collections and from the Outtakes.

I don't know if I could have created the Yokel Songs if I had been concerned with publishing it in conventional ways. Not planning to do so makes it easy for me to cynically and ungratefully neglect this work that the universe has given me. The idea of publishing some of it on Substack is intriguing, but I am uncomfortable with the idea of trying to get subscribers. Self-promotion feels inimical to the Yokel enterprise.

As it is, 20-poem selections from the eleven Yokel books are posted on my blog at johnwenstrom.com. The original drafts that I copied into the eleven Yokel Song collections are also on my blog. My blog posts have received many views--albeit largely from indexer bots.

The four new projects have been:
- Posting on my blog 20-poem selected versions of each of the eleven Yokel Song collections.
- Creating a 55-poem sequential selection of the eleven collections - five poems from each.
- Going through the approximately two hundred rejected and culled Yokel poems, copying them from their original blog posts, and editing them.
- Making printable versions of all of the Selected Yokel Song collections, including the End Times collections, The Yokel's End Times Footsie Drag and Gender Transformation in the End Times.

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Selected Yokel Songs

I've put 20-poem versions of all the Yokel collections on my blog. They look nice. They use color and a brief into to convey the Chacral organization of the complete collections, which have been printed in color but are not available online.

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Fifty-Five-Poem Selection From the Whole Work

I've made a selected version called 55 Yokel Songs, a Drag Poem, containing 5 poems from each book in the order in which they were written. 

Doomed Yokel - Root
Woke Yokel - Root
Bardic Yokel - Sacrum
Scared  Yokel - Belly
Pretty Yoke - Root (Feet)
Trans Yokel - Heart
Yokel Comedian - Belly
Altruistic Yokel - Throat
Elegiac Yokel - Third Eye
Splendid Yokel - Crown
Loving Yokel - Root

I've thought of posting this 55-poem collection on Substack, but I hesitate because it feels too much like flaunting. There's something about Substack's self-promotional approach that works great for political voices, but not for personal and often indiscreet verse.

At this point in time representing myself as a drag artist, which is what I really am, frightens me. After all, I spent at least sixty years of my life in denial of my true identity, in response to the gender policing I was subjected to when I was young. Those gender police have now claimed the day. Should I be courageous and publish this collection on Substack, with its 2017 poem containing the lines: I'm the feet poet? I suspect discretion and retirement will win: Papageno, schweige still!

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Yokel Song Outtakes Collections

I've gone back to my blog to rescue Yokel Songs that were never collected, or were rejected for some reason while I was selecting poems for the eleven Yokel books. I'm amazed by the number of outtakes 36 for 2018, 71 for 2019, and 85 for 2020: 192 in all -- after culling approximately 20. The eleven Yokel collections contain a total of 540 poems. I've fairly heavily edited many or most of the Outtakes poems at least three times in the days when I was copying them into the Outtakes file from my blog.

About the Outtakes, I partly feel that some were wrongly discarded. For example, there are a number of early ones that I may consider incorporating into Elegiac Yokel, which currently only contains one poem from 2018. But at the same time, I can see why I rejected many of them -- too many metaphors that didn't stack up, too many sound associations that lacked sense. Many of those faults can be fixed to some extent in revision, and I have tried to do a lot of that while assembling the collection. 

It seems that I was always whittling down the Yokel collections -- partly because they were expensive to print. But if there is another edition of the Yokel collections, they might incorporate about a quarter of the Outtakes. I should probably make a printed book of Outtakes collections - I suppose it would come to three books. I've mostly done so.

The Outtakes include fewer erotic poems than were included in the eleven chakra-classified collections, and this fact makes them a bit more postable, perhaps. The Outtakes includes no poems written after 2020. In the eleven Yokel Song collections, poems written after 2020 were appended in a section called End Times. These poems tend to be erotic. Most of the End Times poems -- approximately 150 -- found their way into Pretty Yokel, Trans Yokel, Bardic Yokel, or Loving Yokel.

I can easily become impatient with the sassy, self-exhibitionistic tone. The rhymes should provoke unexpected thoughts, but the thoughts shouldn't be irrelevant. 

Because I was especially interested in Trans Yokel when I made the eleven collections, few of the Outtakes poems are classified that way.

I could eventually republish the eleven Yokel Song collections, one at a time. Most likely, I will concentrate on one collection, such as Bardic Yokel, Trans Yokel, Elegiac Yokel, Splendid Yokel or Woke Yokel. At that time, I can incorporate some of the outtakes. 

It's also possible that I am finished with the Yokel Song project. It's a little sad that I myself am pretty much its only audience, but if that how it is so be it.

The following are a few notes on the Outtakes collection's nine sections -- printed as three books, 2018, 2019, 2020.

2018 January - May (12 poems)
These are the earliest villanelles, and their titles begin with the word Villanelle (I had stopped doing that by June). The first poem, "Hunter With Dog," was rejected from Elegiac Yokel (now restored), probably because its imagery seemed too extravagant. The love poems that come next seem appropriate for Loving Yokel, but I probably just wasn't satisfied with them - "Villanelle Valentine" has been much revised, and I like the reference to the Adam and Eve story, even though the line that contains it seems crazy: "But you gave your heart to me, so how did I like them apples?" "I'll Be Fine" seems like a nice funny conclusion to the group - not sure why I didn't include it in Yokel Comedian. (As of Spring 2026, I've restored many.)

2018 May - August (6) "Good Boy Villanelle" introduces the writing theme and could have been (and now is) included in Bardic Yokel. 'The Shears," "Wandering Sheep," and "Les Flammes D'Enfer" have the tone of Doomed Yokel or Vulnerable Yokel, and "Trying to Qualify for the Twenty-Dollar YMCA Discount" seemed too light for Elegiac Yokel.

2018 September - December (18} "Old Stauncher" is a start on the elegiac sorrow theme. "What Rhymes With Poem" seems like an essential one, with its characterization of poetry as a "hum." I read "Terra D'Ombra" at a sort of disastrous reading in 2019 at a Buddhist meditation center - I had worn my carpe diem socks, not realizing (duh!) that I would have to take my shoes off. "Remunerative Avocation - Not" stresses poetry as drag performance.

2019 January - April (19) "Boojum Luck" has always seemed to be making humor out of the misfortunes of friends, and as such I rejected it. But the Outtakes collection is more permissive. The collections are permissive of drag performance but maybe not so much of lack of conventional sympathy. "Ode" Is perfect for the Pretty Yokel collection - not sure why not used there. "BRDTH" ought to be in Bardic Yokel, or else Splendid Yokel. "Song for St. Paddy's Day" might be in Yokel Comedian. "Embarrassing Success" could be in Splendid Yokel.

2019 May-August (22) By this time, I've really gotten going on the villanelles. The first few seem strong, and "Singing" could be in Splendid Yokel. My procedure at this point (which I've carried out in the previous collections) is to color the titles according to chakra-theme. Another idea would be to publish each of these nine Outtake collections on Substack, with a link to the selected Yokel song posts.

2019 September - December (30) This long collection has a number of poems about fiddling. I've removed ten or twelve poems from this collection.

2020 January - April (38) The first three or so poems could have been placed in Loving Yokel. This is the period of the onset of COVID-19, and many of the March and April poems could be placed in Doomed Yokel. Much of this January - April Outtakes collection could be edited so as to be a poem about COVID onset.

2020 May - August (32) A bunch that are a natural for Loving Yokel. "Johnny Be Good and Blue" is doom turning to love, so goes in Splendid Yokel. This period seems pretty strong. This is the period of the demonstrations following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis - the theme of Woke Yokel.

2020 September - December (15) All the poems about the 2020 presidential election have been used, mostly in Devout Yokel. Oh well, that's turned out to be a travesty anyway.

See Printable Versions.