Margaret Cavendish has got to be right up there, but my pet favorite bad Renaissance poet is Barnabe Barnes. This one is irreverently known as “the pissing sonnet.”
How can a discussion of bad poetry be complete without a reference to William Topaz McGonagall, history’s worst poet? The following clunker is a typical example (and it’s only part of the work):
Know how to make it funny? Many/most of her poems can be sung to the tune of the folk song “Oh Susanna” (I’ve heard “Yellow Rose of Texas” mentioned as well, but don’t know the tune). It’s fairly amusing, and is a good way to ruin her poetry for those who admire her work too, because they’ll start inadvertently matching the poems to the tune.
“Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.”
Waving the stars and stripes, I must bring attention to the American counterpart to the immortal McGonagall, Julia Moore, The Sweet Singer of Michigan. Her specialties were horrific deaths and those of children; in fact, children who died horrifically inspired her Muse the most. But here’s a railroad disaster one:
And she should know. 
I once wrote a three-page epic poem in HS about my local library. Only one verse scanned properly (this is about the new, 1959, ugly monochrome one-story library that they moved to from a cramped but charming 1920 building):
:smack: Remember, according to the teacher, that was the BEST VERSE. The rest has blessedly passed from the memory of man.
Vogon.
Ask and you shall receive. The Yellow Rose of Texas
That and O Susannah work equally well.
"Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe.
The second worst is that of the Azagoths of Kria. During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem "Ode To A Small Lump of Green Putty I Found In My Armpit One Midsummer Morning" four of his audience died of internal haemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos is reported to have been "disappointed" by the poem's reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his twelve- book epic entitled My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save life and civilization, leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain.
The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England in the destruction of the planet Earth. "
With apologies to Mr Adams.
Now I really sound geeky
LOL
I’m not familiar with this chap’s work personally, but I [sup]1[/sup]read that someone once quipped:
"I’d rather fail the [sup]2[/sup]Wasserman test
Than read the poems of Edgar Guest
[sup]1[/sup]Felton and Folwer’s Best, Worst, and Most Unusual by Felton and Fowler
[sup]2[/sup]Syphilis
The poetry sometimes found at the top of chapter page for most of Anne Rice’s fictional works.
Is it her husband-? I could care less with every book she writes as well.
If you can sing it to the theme from “Gilligan’s Island,” it’s probably a bad poem.
Nvme, I think it’s her son’s. You’re right, though. Utter crap.
“What is some of the worst poetry you have read?”…
Probably MINE!!! So I won’t make anyone else suffer through it! :rolleyes:
I can’t believe we’ve gotten this far without anybody mentioning that pile of tripe tht was (the singer) Jewel’s poetry.
She used the word “casualty” to mean casualness. And the book got published without anyone ever mentioning to her that she misused the word. She didn’t know until she was doing the press junket and Kurt Loder from MTV (!!) said “That’s not what that word means.” She gave him the look of death, he looked at her as if to say “Damn, woman, I know you lived in a van, but how the hell do you get to be a published ‘poet’ when you don’t have a grasp on the damn language?!”
It’s just crap. If you can get it from the library, though (don’t buy it, for heaven’s sake) it’s worth reading just for the laughs. It’s that bad.
Danielle Steel, overly prolific author of formulaic romance novels, had a book of poetry published, predictably titled Love.
Jimmy Stewart had a book of poetry published too, and from what I recall, there were many poems about fishing.
I once endured a “poet” years ago in a coffee shop who used the term “dewy breasts”. Other than that his poems just went on and on and on, and he was alarmingly serious in his descriptions of love-making, that term is all that has remained with me.
%99 of Livejournal “poets” all sound the same. (“I will be real vague so people can’t figure out what little detail of my life I am talking about, it will be really interesting and abstract!”)
Also, pretty much all depressed highschooler poetry. I am guilty of this as well (beware!!!)
In some old Poet’s Market, one magazine they listed had for it’s sample of their poetry:
I am a human.
My blood is as red as the blood of coyote.
My sperm is as white as the meat of a crab.
I am only doing my job.
The magazine wasn’t listed in the following year’s Poet’s Market (Can’t imagine why :rolleyes: ), but the poem burned itself into my brain and I still remember it. 
E.E. Cummings is awesome! Grrr. . . .
My old boss, the owner of a newspaper, vanity-published 1,000 copies of the worst, worst, worst, worst poems I have ever read.
He advertised the book in the newspaper, and as far as I know he sold two copies. There were boxes of the books kicking around the office, so I stole one. I have it at home, and if I can find it, I’ll type a sample into this thread tomorrow for everyone’s edification.
Mind you, my teen angst poetry rivals even McGonagal for inanity. With a blush, I present for you the following lines, written when I was 16:
:o
Before I forget, this guy on LiveJournal writes some of the worst online poetry I’ve ever seen.