Poems About the Alligator Gar — Written From a Place Where the Oldest Fish in the River Was Never a Trophy

When people search for poems about the alligator gar, they find almost nothing — because the literary tradition doesn't write the fish at all. The whole Gulf Coast calls it a trash fish. Sport fishermen kill it on sight. Wildlife managers poisoned entire rivers to eliminate it in the mid-20th century. Inside the working economy, it was something entirely different: protein in the summer months when everything else went deep. Mitchell Parfait writes from that world — from Dulac, Louisiana, where the gar rolled in the August back bays and the knowledge of how to dress it was never written down. That is what DULAC POETRY carries.

What the Literary Tradition Gets Wrong

The alligator gar (Atractosteus spatula) is a Pre-Columbian fish — unchanged for 100 million years. It predates the Gulf of Mexico itself. Its armored scales deflect hooks and net. Its prehistoric lungs let it breathe air in oxygen-depleted water — rolling to the surface in the August heat when every other fish has gone deep. It is the oldest surviving fish in the Mississippi drainage, and the literary tradition doesn't write it at all.

When the alligator gar appears in American letters, it appears as a monster — a prehistoric throwback, something to be feared or eliminated. That framing is wrong. Mitchell writes it straight: as a working fish, a seasonal calendar, a source of protein in the summer months when the shrimp boats were slow. The gar is not a monster. It is the fish that was still there when everything else left. Order on Amazon and read the version written from inside that knowledge.

The Alligator Gar in Dulac

Late summer in the back bays behind Dulac: oxygen gone from the water, heat sitting on the surface like a lid, the water the color of coffee. Every other fish has gone deep or offshore. The alligator gar rolls to the surface to breathe — the only fish doing that. A short exhale, not dramatic, just functional. You hear it before you see it. Mitchell grew up watching them roll in the dead-water back bays. You knew where the oxygen-dead water was by where the gar were rolling.

Choctaw families along Bayou Grand Caillou ate alligator gar. Read Dulac Poetry and find the knowledge in the poems — the preparation that was never written down anywhere else. Strip the armored scales with tin snips, not a knife. Fillet along the spine. The roe is toxic — throw it to the bank. The flesh is clean, firm, white. You had to know how to dress it. That knowledge is not in any cookbook. Mitchell wrote it down.

Why Gulf South Is Different

Outside the Gulf South, the alligator gar is a problem to be solved. Bowfishing tournaments. Eradication programs. Rivers poisoned whole to eliminate it in the mid-20th century — rotenone poured into the water, the gar floating belly-up alongside everything else. Rough-fish bounties paid per carcass. The literary tradition mirrors the management tradition: the gar is primitive, dangerous, undesirable. You shoot it on sight from the bow of a boat and leave it on the bank.

Inside the working Gulf South economy, the calculation was different. The gar was protein in the summer months when other fish went deep and the shrimp boats were slow and the family needed to eat. The knowledge of how to dress it — tin snips for the armor, the spine fillet, throwing the toxic roe — was specific and almost lost. Nobody wrote it down. Dulac Poetry on Amazon approaches the gar the way a working fisherman approaches it — with knowledge, not revulsion. Get it on Amazon and read the difference.

What You'd Find in Dulac Poetry — Alligator Gar Poems

Most Gulf Coast alligator gar poems don't exist. The bayou gar poems that come from inside Terrebonne Parish don't live in the sport-fishing tradition or the eradication program frame — they live in the specific knowledge of the oldest fish in the river, rolling in August dead water, feeding a family on a working coast. These are the poems Mitchell Parfait writes:

• The gar rolling in oxygen-dead August water — the sound of the exhale, the only thing moving in the coffee-colored back bay
• Choctaw preparation: tin snips for the armor, the spine fillet, the toxic roe thrown to the bank
• Pre-Columbian lineage — 100 million years, unchanged, still here, still rolling in the same August heat
• The eradication programs: rivers poisoned to kill it, bounties paid per carcass, and the gar surviving anyway
• Summer protein: what it meant to have gar in the freezer when the shrimp boats were slow and everything else had gone deep

These aren't poems about sport. They're poems about the specific knowledge that keeps a family fed — the kind that only comes from staying, from watching the gar roll for decades, from knowing that the sound of that short exhale means the oxygen is gone from the water and your grandfather is already reaching for the tin snips. That someone is Mitchell Parfait, writing from Dulac, Louisiana, where the alligator gar was never a trophy and never a problem — just the fish that was still there.

That's the alligator gar in Dulac Poetry. Not a trash fish. Not a monster. The oldest surviving fish in the Mississippi drainage — and you were grateful for the knowledge of how to eat it. Most readers looking for Louisiana alligator gar poetry will find that these poems work differently than anything they've read before — truer, more specific, harder to put down. Available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

From the bayou. By Mitchell Parfait.

DULAC POETRY — Available on Amazon

Order the Paperback →Get the Kindle ($3.99) →

What It Means to Write the Alligator Gar From Dulac

Mitchell Parfait grew up in Dulac, Louisiana — on Bayou Grand Caillou, in Terrebonne Parish, with Choctaw descent and a working-coast upbringing. Dulac Poetry is the only collection written from inside this economy. The alligator gar in these poems is not a symbol. It is the fish that was still there when everything else left — rolling in the dead water in August, breathing air, waiting — and you were grateful for the knowledge of how to eat it.

The gar survived the rotenone programs. It survived the bounties. It survived 100 million years of mass extinctions and Gulf Coast upheaval. It survived the sport fishermen who shot it from the bow and left it on the bank. That is not metaphor — that is natural history. Mitchell writes it as natural history, as Choctaw knowledge, as the specific seasonal calendar of a working bayou family who understood that the fish rolling in August dead water was not a problem. It was dinner.

The paperback is available on Amazon for $12.99. The Kindle edition is $3.99. This is Gulf South fishing poetry from the inside — not the bowfishing tournament, not the eradication program, not the literary magazine's idea of a rough fish.

Read alongside poems about the sheepshead and poems about the black drum to understand the full world Mitchell writes from. Then pick up a copy and read the poems themselves.

DULAC POETRY — Order Dulac Poetry. Get a copy | Add to your reading list