NoZed Avenger
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2002
- Messages
- 11,286
Ok. There is a bad, bad one that I must now locate and post.
Hawk one
Emperor of the Internet
Does the limerick thread count as published? 
No. You can't use my limericks as bad poetry.Does the limerick thread count as published?
BillC
Bazooka Joe
http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/91q2/lguppy.html
The worst love poem ever written.
The worst love poem ever written.
Is that actually on paper somewhere, or just in the form of ones and zeroes?
eta: I honestly think I could beat that, even on a bad day, with an ode to any given skepchick. Give me a skepchick I actually care about and I can send that poem home yelping with its iambic tail between its legs...
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bruto
Penultimate Amazing
Almost any used book store will cough up a copy of one of Rod McKuen's books, from which almost any page chosen at random would probably be a pretty good contender. Listen to the Warm would be a good start.
Among well known, traditonal poems, I might nominate "The boy stood on the burning deck etc." by Felicia Hemans.
Some years ago there was an anthology of bad poetry called The Stuffed Owl, which was quite amusing, especially because it found bad poems by good poets too.
Finally, if you have not heard it, I urge any music lover to find whichever of the several Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival disks from the 60's has their hilarious reading of McGonagall's "The Great Tay Whale." Sorry, I'm travelling and not at home, so cannot tell you which one it is. If you're a classical music lover and you've never heard the Hoffnung festivals, you're in for a treat anyway.
When I was growing up I discovered poets like Mark Strand, W.S. Merwin, Howard Nemerov, Jorge Luis Borges, etc. in the New Yorker. I haven't seen a N.Y. in a while. I guess times have changed, eh?
Among well known, traditonal poems, I might nominate "The boy stood on the burning deck etc." by Felicia Hemans.
Some years ago there was an anthology of bad poetry called The Stuffed Owl, which was quite amusing, especially because it found bad poems by good poets too.
Finally, if you have not heard it, I urge any music lover to find whichever of the several Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival disks from the 60's has their hilarious reading of McGonagall's "The Great Tay Whale." Sorry, I'm travelling and not at home, so cannot tell you which one it is. If you're a classical music lover and you've never heard the Hoffnung festivals, you're in for a treat anyway.
When I was growing up I discovered poets like Mark Strand, W.S. Merwin, Howard Nemerov, Jorge Luis Borges, etc. in the New Yorker. I haven't seen a N.Y. in a while. I guess times have changed, eh?
BillC
Bazooka Joe
It appears to exist only on the net, so perhaps you can disqualify it on those grounds. It also appears to be a deliberate attempt to write a bad poem, so if you or someone else can do a lot better, does that make it a bad bad poem?
Hawk one
Emperor of the Internet
I was thinking more about presenting my own limericks as bad poetry, actually.
RebeccaBradley
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2002
- Messages
- 449
Oh, Mercutio. The psychologist-poet's excursus on human behaviour was worth waiting for. Somebody should gently confiscate that poor man's rhyming dictionary. I liked the Dead Swans and the other disgusting ones, too.
A few years ago, I had the good luck to pick up a book called In Search of the World's Worst Writers by Nick Page, which is full of (mercifully) forgotten literary treasures. For example, I was delighted to find in its pages some gems from the Rev. Samuel Wesley, father of the more famous John and Charles - an excerpt:
On Two Souldiers killing one another for a Groat
Full doleful tales have oft been told,
By Chimney warm in Winter cold,
About the Sacred Thirst of Gold;
To hear 'em half 'twould mad ye.
To Jayl how many headlong run,
How many a hopeful Youth's undone,
How many a vile, ungracious Son,
For this has murder'd Daddy?
On a Supper of Stinking Ducks
...
O Spirits of Arm-pits, and Essence of Toes!
O Hogo of Ulcers, and Hospital Nose!
With fat blubby Pease that are grimy all o'er
Thick butter'd with delicate matter and Gore!
Some say, according to Nick Page, that John Wesley only founded Methodism as a way of saying 'sorry' for his father's poetry.
BTW, Nick Page's nomination for the very very VERY worst writer ever, in both prose and poetry, is the sublimely awful Amanda McKittrick Ros (1860-1939):
Sympathize with me indeed! Ah, no! Cast your sympathy on the chill waves of troubled waters, fling it on the oases of futurity, dash it against the rock of gossip; or better still, allow it to remain within the false and faithless bosom of buried scorn. Such were the few remarks of Irene as she paced the beach of limited freedom, alone and unprotected...
Ros even took her place among the War Poets:
....Go! Meet the foe undaunted, they're rotten cowards all,
Present to them the bayonet, they totter and they fall,
We know you'll do your duty and come to little harm
And if you meet the Kaiser, cut off his other arm.
(Cringe).
A few years ago, I had the good luck to pick up a book called In Search of the World's Worst Writers by Nick Page, which is full of (mercifully) forgotten literary treasures. For example, I was delighted to find in its pages some gems from the Rev. Samuel Wesley, father of the more famous John and Charles - an excerpt:
On Two Souldiers killing one another for a Groat
Full doleful tales have oft been told,
By Chimney warm in Winter cold,
About the Sacred Thirst of Gold;
To hear 'em half 'twould mad ye.
To Jayl how many headlong run,
How many a hopeful Youth's undone,
How many a vile, ungracious Son,
For this has murder'd Daddy?
On a Supper of Stinking Ducks
...
O Spirits of Arm-pits, and Essence of Toes!
O Hogo of Ulcers, and Hospital Nose!
With fat blubby Pease that are grimy all o'er
Thick butter'd with delicate matter and Gore!
Some say, according to Nick Page, that John Wesley only founded Methodism as a way of saying 'sorry' for his father's poetry.
BTW, Nick Page's nomination for the very very VERY worst writer ever, in both prose and poetry, is the sublimely awful Amanda McKittrick Ros (1860-1939):
Sympathize with me indeed! Ah, no! Cast your sympathy on the chill waves of troubled waters, fling it on the oases of futurity, dash it against the rock of gossip; or better still, allow it to remain within the false and faithless bosom of buried scorn. Such were the few remarks of Irene as she paced the beach of limited freedom, alone and unprotected...
Ros even took her place among the War Poets:
....Go! Meet the foe undaunted, they're rotten cowards all,
Present to them the bayonet, they totter and they fall,
We know you'll do your duty and come to little harm
And if you meet the Kaiser, cut off his other arm.
(Cringe).
RebeccaBradley
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2002
- Messages
- 449
I think we should honour Mercutio's psychologist-poet by adding new stanzas to his masterwork. We could call it "Attack of the Killer Present Participles", and it could go on forever. Or it might just feel that way. Here's my contribution:
Mailing, mincing, mating,
Whaling, wincing, waiting,
Trailing, tricking, trucking,
Failing, flicking...er...clucking.
Mailing, mincing, mating,
Whaling, wincing, waiting,
Trailing, tricking, trucking,
Failing, flicking...er...clucking.
I think, to be safe, that "gently" is not the way to go. I submit that we should wait until he is holding it, then remove both arms from the elbow down.
RebeccaBradley
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2002
- Messages
- 449
Under the circumstances, "from the elbow down" qualifies as gently.
In case it was misunderstood, I meant I could write a worse intentionally bad poem.
As opposed to the unintentionally bad stuff I have posted here.
I vaguely recall making a poem for a competition I had with friends (two of them were creative writing majors and during a party we decided to have a worst-poem contest) about having sex with someone's nose but even that only won third prize... I think the winner was one about shower-grouting and mould. The problem is, they become unintentionally funny and therefore worth reading, in some cases, simply for their humour value. The goal is both bad and unfunny.
BillC
Bazooka Joe
And by 'better', I meant better at being intentionally bad.
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
It's pretty hard to top Mr. Wesley, but I suspect him of having had a sense of humor, and at least a passing acquaintance witht the mechanics of prosody, qualities which appear to be entirely absent in the work of Julia Moore, who might be considered the American Mcgonagall, or perhaps the Florence Foster Jenkins of American Poetry. I'm not sure whether Mr. Wesley's apparent glimmer of intelligence mitigates his badness or makes it that much more egregious. But I'll include a few small tidbits from Ms. Moore, who was especially good with death and disaster:
God has took their little treasure,
And his name I'll tell you now,
He has gone from Earth forever,
Their little Charles Henry House.
(Little Henry)
"Lord Byron" was an Englishman.
A poet I believe,
His first works in old England
Was poorly received.
Perhaps it was "Lord Byron's" fault
And perhaps it was not.
His life was full of misfortunes,
Ah, strange was his lot.
etc. etc.
(Lord Byron, a critical study)
Finally, how about a verse from "Steam, the seamy side," to be sung to the air "Gently Down the Stream of time."
Have you heard of the dreadful fate
Of Mr. P.P. Bliss and wife?
Of their death I will relate,
And also others lost their life;
Ashtabula Bridge disaster,
Where so many people died
Without a thought that destruction
Would plunge them 'neath the wheel of tide.
etc. etc. choruses included....
Ms. Moore did not respond kindly to critics, either. She really thought that she was good. She responded to her critics in verse, of course.
Perhaps you've read the papers,
Containing my interview;
I hope you kind good people
Will not believe it true
Some Editors of the papers
They thought it would be wise
To write a column about me
So they filled it up with lies.
The papers have ridiculed me
A year and a half or more,
Such slander as the interview
I never read before.
Some reporters and editors
Are versed in telling lies.
Others it seems are willing
To let industry rise.
That'll show them!
God has took their little treasure,
And his name I'll tell you now,
He has gone from Earth forever,
Their little Charles Henry House.
(Little Henry)
"Lord Byron" was an Englishman.
A poet I believe,
His first works in old England
Was poorly received.
Perhaps it was "Lord Byron's" fault
And perhaps it was not.
His life was full of misfortunes,
Ah, strange was his lot.
etc. etc.
(Lord Byron, a critical study)
Finally, how about a verse from "Steam, the seamy side," to be sung to the air "Gently Down the Stream of time."
Have you heard of the dreadful fate
Of Mr. P.P. Bliss and wife?
Of their death I will relate,
And also others lost their life;
Ashtabula Bridge disaster,
Where so many people died
Without a thought that destruction
Would plunge them 'neath the wheel of tide.
etc. etc. choruses included....
Ms. Moore did not respond kindly to critics, either. She really thought that she was good. She responded to her critics in verse, of course.
Perhaps you've read the papers,
Containing my interview;
I hope you kind good people
Will not believe it true
Some Editors of the papers
They thought it would be wise
To write a column about me
So they filled it up with lies.
The papers have ridiculed me
A year and a half or more,
Such slander as the interview
I never read before.
Some reporters and editors
Are versed in telling lies.
Others it seems are willing
To let industry rise.
That'll show them!
What?!
It's not one of Kipling's best but not his worst and Kipling was an exceptional wordsmith. There is a great deal of skill and a good ear for language in that verse - it is technically very good. I think you should withdraw your nomination!
boooeee
Dart Fener
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2002
- Messages
- 2,671