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Very Bad Poetry

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Great poets have their weak moments, but they tend to produce only the occasional bad line - say, for example, when William Wordsworth, one of England's greatest poets, wrote the unintentionally bawdy "Give me your tool, to him I said."

Very bad poets, however, "are perpetrators of a unique and fascinating kind of writing. Unlike the plainly bad or the merely mediocre, very bad poetry is powerful stuff. Like great literature, it moves us emotionally, but, of course, it often does so in ways the writer never intended: usually we laugh."

This book is dedicated to those writers, mostly from the 19th century, who excelled at very bad poetry with astonishing consistency. Those who were blessed, if that is the word, for their entire career with "a wooden ear for words, a penchant for sinking into a mire of sentimentality, a bullheaded inclination to stuff too many syllables or words into a line or a phrase, and an enviable confidence" that allowed them to write despite absolute appalling incompetence.

Here we find the awful metaphor ("the dew on my heart is undried and unshaken") and the tortured rhyme ("Gooing babies, helpless pygmies,/ Who shall solve your Fate's enigmas?") next to one of the most unappetizing titles for a love poem ever ("I Saw Her in Cabbage Time").

Some of the most hilarious effects are created by the attempt to dramatize the pedestrian, as in the "Ode on the Mammoth Cheese", aptly subtitled "Weighing over 7,000 pounds":

We have seen thee, queen of cheese,
Lying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze,
Thy fair form no flies dare seize. (there are five more delicious stanzas)

Not quite as riotously funny, but interesting as a phenomenon of the 19th century, is the preoccupation of very bad poets with death. It produced tasteless marvels of what the editors labeled "tabloid verse" like:

Oh, Heaven! It was a frightful and pitiful sight to see
Seven bodies charred of the Jarvis family;
And Mrs. Jarvis was found with her child, and both carbonized,
And as the searchers gazed thereon they were surprised.

Another favorite of very bad poets is the use of bizarre words in blissful ignorance of their meaning or the common readers' associations. One of the most talented in this respect was one Amanda McKittrick Ros, "a writer with a gift for (as she puts it) 'disturbing the bowels.'" To her we owe the following lines written on the occasion of her visit of Westminster Abbey:

Holy Moses! Have a look!
Flesh decayed in every nook!
Some rare bits of brain lie here
Mortal loads of beef and beer
Some of whom are turned to dust, [only some?]
Every one bids lost to lust.

The editors' favorite worst poem ever written in the English language bears the title "A Tragedy" - which, indeed, it is. But I don't want to spoil the fun by quoting it here. My own favorite is an excerpt from "A Pindaresque on the Grunting of a Hog." Nothing describes the voice of a very bad poet better than the sounds this animal makes:

Harmonious Hog draw near!
No bloody Butchers here,
Thou need'st not fear.
Harmonious Hog draw near, and from thy beauteous Snowt,
Whilst we attend with Ear
Like thine prik't up devout,
To taste thy sugry Voice, which hear, and there,
With wanton Curls, Vibrates around the Circling Air,
Harmonious Hog! Warble some Anthem out!

Pindar, by the way, was the most famous lyric poet of ancient Greece. He lived in the 5th century BC and saw himself as a poet dedicated to preserving and interpreting great deeds and their divine values.

Another famous ancient Greek author ("Sing, o muse, the wrath of Achilles ...") inspired a very bad poet to what is perhaps the worst line of poetry ever written without satiric intent: "Now, Muse, let's sing of rats." In fact, the poet changed the last word from the original "mice" to "rats" because he found "rats" more dignified.

I have to share this with Amazon.com's readers...

A couple of years ago, we bought this book, as a family Christmas present. We laughed until we cried, then packed the book up, and took it along to the big family get-together at Grandma's house. After dinner, with everybody gathered around the living room, Very Bad Poetry was brought out, passed around, and each family member invited to read a selection - ALOUD. The carnage was indescribable! Everybody laughed until their sides ached! Children clamored to be allowed to "read a bad poem". Adults could be seen, after it was over, furtively trying to memorize their "favorite".

What more could you ask from a book of poems - bad or good!

I stumbled across this book, and immediately bought it, along with several copies for my friends as well. Taking it to a nearby coffee shop, I laughed so hard other patrons were staring, and somebody actually came up and asked me what was so funny. They seemed to think I was crazy for deliberately buying a book of bad poetry. Finally, I began laughing so hard I was crying, and had to leave to coffee shop to save some sense of dignity! With such gems as "Ode to a Ditch," and "Elegy for a Dissected Puppy," this book proves more interesting and entertaining than I expected, and is also a testament to the indomitable human spirit, which warbles the strangest of verses.

This book is not to be read in public unless you don't mind attacting attention when you burst out laughing to the point you are in tears. There are no words to describe these poets and their works--at least no words I can use here. This is a must-have addition to everyone's library. Stock up for next Christmas!

"An Elegy to a Dissected Puppy"? "The Ditch"? "Children Disinterred"? "I Kissed Pa Twice After His Death"? Badly made horror films? No, these are just a sampling of the motherlode of poetic dreg Kathryn and Ross Petras have collected in this volume. All the poems collected are honest, serious attemps at poetic art; that makes this collection all the more hilarious.

A note of praise/concern--Speech students have claimed state championships in Nebraska using "Very Bad Poetry" selections...gasp!

Very bad poetry is the funniest collection of poetry ever! My favorite poem is "Ode To the Mammoth Cheese"! If you like poetry, this is a must read!

Bad poetry is one of life's greatest illicit joys, and there are some real gems here, along with much commentary by the editors who help explain why this stuff is so terrible in case you somehow can't figure it out. For my taste, there are too many little excepts here and not enough complete poems. For fans of this sort of thing, I also strongly recommend two other books. The first is "Pegasus Descending," an earlier collection of bad verse that was among the first of its kind. (I think it may come back into print in 2001?) Hilarious. The other is the catalog of "Moba," the Museum of Bad Art in Massachusetts. Lord, are those paintings funny.

What makes a poem very bad? There is no definitive answer of course, though Kathryn and Ross Petras list several common elements, like "a well-honed sense of the anticlimactic," unfortunate rhymes, and overzealous use of literary devices.It may seem as though it's easy enough to write a very bad poem, given these strategies, and yet the editors would beg to differ: "Unlike the plainly bad or the merely mediocre, very bad poetry is powerful stuff. Like great literature, it moves us emotionally, but, of course, it often does so in ways the writer never intended: usually we laugh." And so you will as you make your way through one dazzlingly bad poem after another, lingering on such pinnacles as the editors have designated "The Most Lurid Account of a Tragedy," "The Most Convoluted Syntax," and last and certainly least, "The Worst Poem Ever Written in the English Language," titled (appropriately!) "A Tragedy" which opens with the lines: Death!/Plop./The barges down the river flop. Why should a writer aspiring to very good poetry want to read Very Bad Poetry? For the sheer fun of it, of course, and for the comfort of knowing no matter how bad you think your poem is, it cannot be as bad as the very bad poetry therein!

I read a small book of bad poems today/the authors though they did their best/could not make them rhyme or make them fit time/with the beat of the verse - so they guessed!Ah, I understand just how hard it can be/to have Muses call in your ear/yet talent be lacking so the poem is cracking/apart and the writer's in tears!I paid eight plus tax for this book that so lacks/any reason to even be read? Oh, so what if I did/if it inspires one kid to take up biology instead - hooray!

Low satire of a very high order. Pound for pound, Very Bad Poetry is a better buy than Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, Voltaire's Candide, or Dr. Johnson's Rasselas. Kudos to K. Petras & R. Petras, who pepper these gloriously godawful piles of doggerel with just the right mix of high-toned amusement & subtle skepticism as to their artistic merits. In fact, V.B.P. is the best book of its kind since the publication some thirty years ago of the immortal Owl Anthology of Bad Verse.