Poetry. Out of print for thirty years, this hilarious and disgusting anthology is again available, complete and unexpurgated. The editors have rummaged the arsenal of English poetry for its most spectacular fizzles. They have been no respecters of persons: Sarah Taylor Shatford and Alfred Austin rub shoulders here with Milton, Keats and Wordsworth. The poems presented are absolutely sincere; no failure is faked. All infelicities are unintended. As one genius of the awful put it, "Literary is a work very difficult to do". But another, the great Edgar A. Guest, reminds us, "Sacred and sweet is the joy that must come/ From the furnace of life when you've poured off the scum". Here there is—as James Wright declared, after hearing these poems—"nothing mediocre!"
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious,
By A Customer
This review is from: Pegasus Descending; A Book of the Best Bad Verse. (Hardcover)
Compilers Camp, Kennedy, and Waldrop came up with this gem of a book in the early seventies, and as far as I know it was one of the first of its kind. Here are some of the worst poems ever proferred in English, made doubly funny by their earnest sincerity. They have even found a few clunkers by great poets, among them Emily Dickinson. Chapters include terrible opening lines and outright "disasters"! These bad poems will bring you as much joy as any good poem can.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Bad" is good.,
This review is from: Pegasus Descending; A Book of the Best Bad Verse. (Hardcover)
This shares the crown of "premier anthology of bad verse" with Wyndham's Lewis' wonderful volume, The Stuffed Owl. Don't read it in a library or anywhere else where you need to be decorous, as it provokes guffaws!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best "bad poetry" book by far,
By TheBanshee "M.J." (United States) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Pegasus Descending: A Book of the Best Bad Verse (Paperback)
I've read some other compilations of "bad poetry," and most of the poems aren't that bad - they're just dull. Not the same thing at all.
I first heard of this book when I read X.J. Kennedy's excellent text "An Introduction to Poetry" in college. The book had a very funny chapter on "Telling Good from Bad." I've owned "Pegasus Descending" for several years now, and some of the poems in this book can still make me cry from laughing so hard. The special genius of this collection is that the editors are never mean-spirited or snobbish in their comments; it's evident that they love poetry, even poetry written when the muse was evidently out to lunch.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
