# Who was the all-time worst poet of the English language? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 20, 2002, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731 "2002-04-20T23:47:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![croaker67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/439d5e/32.png) [@croaker67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/croaker67)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2002, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/21 "2002-04-22T02:49:16Z")
Ummm, Tupac Shakur. My girlfriend and I went to the help desk at the local Borders Book Shop looking for a particular title. A young lady shows up and asks “Where can I find the lost poetry of Tupac Shakur?”. No joke, the guy behind the desk says it’s right after the Shakespeare section. ---
**Author:** ![ndorward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c2a13f/32.png) [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2002, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/22 "2002-04-22T03:21:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Katisha \* > \*\*OK, poets taken seriously – I have to say, a lot of what I’ve read by John Dryden makes me cringe… \*\* What did I say about Poets Laureate… I don’t think Dryden ever wrote any utterly _awful_ verse, at least outside his hideous plays (his plays are mostly very period-bound, awful stuff–try the ghastly _Aurung-Zebe_ for instance). That said, his poetry is nowadays very much an acquired taste, & I can’t say I think it worth acquiring, beyond reading his two great satires “Mac Flecknoe” & “Absalom & Achitophel”. I say this having read such meisterwerks as “Religio Laici” & “The Hind & the Panther”…snore. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by ITR champion_ > **I was under the impression that critics mainly adored him for those short, choppy, and meaningless verses. Some of his longer and more rhythmic poems are decent, but none of them qualify as great literature. Perhaps my distaste for him results partly from the fact that in my 12th grade English class, the guy who sat next to me was constantly trying to explain to me that “Red Wheelbarrow” was the work of a literary grandmaster, that it put Shakespeare to shame, etc…** I’ve no idea who these “critics” are, as the answer is certainly _not_, to judge by any serious writing on WCW I’ve read (say Mariani). Take a look at say the useful paperback casebook edited by Charles Tomlnson for an example of criticism on WCW up to the 1960s. I think you’re misled by the fact that such poems are popular for teaching high school students because they’re short & seem easily graspable. I should point out that “The Red Wheelbarrow” is much best read in the original context, which is the long mixed-genre text _Spring and All_; it was only later severed from this volume as a free-standing poem (& the title was added at this point–a mistake, I think, as it slightly short-circuits the internal movement of the poem). ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2002, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/23 "2002-04-22T05:32:44Z")
Before I saw this was about FAMOUS horrible poets, I started a google search for ‘horrible goth poetry’. I know it doesn’t apply to this thread, but I had to share what I found on one of the first pages that came up. globes of flesh meet in the middle black butterfly hemorrhoid of doom swirling meaty flesh of the night vampire BITE BITE BITE MOTHERFUCKER ---
**Author:** ![racinchikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2002, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/24 "2002-04-22T06:49:16Z")
hemorrhoid of doom? HEMORRHOID? i’d understand hemorrhage, maybe. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2002, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/25 "2002-04-22T11:06:17Z")
Years ago, a friend of mine wrote a book called **Rasputin Fish, the World’s Worst Poet** : [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0951507303/qid%3D1019473415/202-7588070-9029458](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0951507303/qid%3D1019473415/202-7588070-9029458) Unfortunately, the book is out of print. But if enough people request it, perhaps they can bring it back. And confound [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) . Seriously, the author, Michael Lea, was a professor of Optics (!), with a wicked sense of humor that he concealed beneath a deadpan demeanor. He kept an enormous stack of unsold skits, built “nothing” machines (kinetic sculptures), and, while in grad school, produced one of the funniest student films I’ve ever seen – “The Optics Film”, which I would _love_ to own a copy of. ---
**Author:** ![Sophie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@Sophie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophie)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2002, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/26 "2002-04-22T11:42:07Z")
I can’t believe that no one has mentioned Jim Morrison yet. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2002, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/27 "2002-04-22T14:16:51Z")
In “Felton and Fowler’s Best, Worst, and Most Unusual” they mention Edgar Guest, along with a couplet that someone coined referring to his oeuvre: “I’d rather fail the Wasserman test Than read the poems of Edgar Guest.” ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2002, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/28 "2002-04-22T14:27:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Treviathan \* > **A brief hijack, but the William Carlos Williams bashing brings to memory the “This Is Just To Say” parody thread that was sadly wiped out by the Great Message Board Purge of 2002. I was planning on sending that to my thesis advisor, who’s written numerous articles on Williams.** Thanks for remembering–I miss that one too. The cheese guy’s poems are so over the top–are we sure he was serious? Isn’t everybody a critic? Wouldn’t these guys have shown their poems to their friends? I don’t think even my mother would pat my knee and say, “That’s nice dear,” if I showed her something like the Queen of Cheese poem. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2002, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/29 "2002-04-22T15:10:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LonesomePolecat \* > \*\* It it Whitman? Is it Yeats? Eliot? Cummings? Ginsberg? \*\* You’ve already given my answer. Walt Whitman’s popularity completely baffles me, and I can’t see what any one likes about his pompous style. (" I speak for…" everyone. More than a little presumptuous that you’d speak better for them than they can themselves, Walt old buddy) It took four years of being forced to read his drivel before I read one of his poems that didn’t immediately rub me the wrong way- “the astronomer.” I consider myself lucky that I’ll never need to read another of his poems. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2002, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/30 "2002-04-22T15:42:20Z")
I have to put in a vote for Gerard Manley Hopkins. My high school English teacher thought he was, quite literally, God’s gift to literature, so I admit there may be some teenage neuroses speaking here, but I don’t care. I still say his work was remarkably bad. ---
**Author:** ![G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c67d28/32.png) [@G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.B.H.Hornswoggler)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2002, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/31 "2002-04-22T16:39:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ITR champion \* > \*\* > > I was under the impression that critics mainly adored him [William Carlos Williams] for those short, choppy, and meaningless verses. Some of his longer and more rhythmic poems are decent, but none of them qualify as great literature. Perhaps my distaste for him results partly from the fact that in my 12th grade English class, the guy who sat next to me was constantly trying to explain to me that “Red Wheelbarrow” was the work of a literary grandmaster, that it put Shakespeare to shame, etc… \*\* In my cynical opinion, English teachers (and students) like his short poems because they’re easy to teach (short), easy to read (short) and easy to understand (did I mention that they’re short?). They’re, if I recall the name correctly, “Imagist” poems that are designed to crystalize one specific object or scene. So complaining that “it’s just what this stupid wheelbarrow looks like” isn’t really useful, since that’s exactly what it’s trying to do. (Though the question of whether it’s worth doing is always open.) Williams, to me, is primarily the author of **Paterson** , one of the great long poems in the English language and the best book-length poem ever written by an American. (So an insult to Williams is fightin’ words to me…) ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2002, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/32 "2002-04-22T18:56:39Z")
Lewis Carroll. Oh God how I hate _Jabberwocky_. But of course that is just my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Flamsterette\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/41988e/32.png) [@Flamsterette\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flamsterette_X)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/33 "2002-04-23T01:02:29Z")
Here is the list of the 10 Worst-Ever Published Poets in the English Language from my book entitled _The Mammoth Book of Tasteless Lists_ by Karl Shaw. 1. William McGonagall (1825-1902) 2. King Ludwig I of Bavaria (1786-1868) 3. Alfred Austin (1835-1913) 4. Joseph Gwyer (1835-90?) 5. Julia A. Moore (1847-1920) 6. J. Gordon Coogler (1865-1901) 7. Amanda McKittrick Ros (1860-1939) 8. The Reverend Cornelius Whur (1782-1953) 9. Henry James Pye (1745-1913) 10. Carmen Sylva (1843-1916) [Romania’s first Queen Consort, Elisabeth of Wied] ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/34 "2002-04-23T01:39:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by flodnak \* > \*\*I have to put in a vote for Gerard Manley Hopkins. My high school English teacher thought he was, quite literally, God’s gift to literature, so I admit there may be some teenage neuroses speaking here, but I don’t care. I still say his work was remarkably bad. \*\* * * * I’ve hated Hopkins ever since he used the word “stippled” in a poem. Just that one word was enough. ---
**Author:** ![ndorward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c2a13f/32.png) [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/35 "2002-04-23T01:48:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Flamsterette\_X \* > \*\*Here is the list of the 10 Worst-Ever Published Poets in the English Language from my book entitled _The Mammoth Book of Tasteless Lists_ by Karl Shaw. > > 1. William McGonagall (1825-1902) > 2. King Ludwig I of Bavaria (1786-1868) > 3. Alfred Austin (1835-1913) > 4. Joseph Gwyer (1835-90?) > 5. Julia A. Moore (1847-1920) > 6. J. Gordon Coogler (1865-1901) > 7. Amanda McKittrick Ros (1860-1939) > 8. The Reverend Cornelius Whur (1782-1953) > 9. Henry James Pye (1745-1913) > 10. Carmen Sylva (1843-1916) [Romania’s first Queen Consort, Elisabeth of Wied] \*\* Exactly what were King Ludwig I of Bavaria & Carmen Sylva doing writing poems in _English_? Incidentally, the list above is entirely confined to dead poets, presumably out of tact. If you want to see a good instance of absolutely terrible poetry by a living poet, you could sample Douglas Clark, a man who lives in Bath. He has a [website](http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/home.html) online. He’s a nice man (I’ve corresponded with him) but a truly awful writer. **G.B.H. Hornswoggler** : Williams’ early work is clearly comparable to the Imagists, but to my knowledge the term is usually applied to a different set of authors, of which the most notable are (the early) Ezra Pound & H.D. – _Paterson_ is indeed a major long poem. Like many or all major long poems of the 20th century (e.g. Pound’s _Cantos_, Eliot’s _Four Quartets_, Crane’s _The Bridge_, Olson’s _Maximus_, Zukofsky’s _“A”_), it’s also deeply problematic, & my own sympathies are with those (e.g. Randall Jarrell, Charles Tomlinson) who consider it extremely uneven. Book One is extraordinary; thereafter it becomes less consistently successful, & I must confess that elements like the “C.” letters (large quantities of WCW’s correspondence spatchcocked into the text) seem to me hard to justify. Like a lot of long modernist poems composed over a lengthy period of time, it suffers from gradually loosening over time, so that just about anything that comes into the author’s mind can go in. ---
**Author:** ![ndorward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c2a13f/32.png) [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/36 "2002-04-23T01:53:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by vivalostwages \* > \*\*I’ve hated Hopkins ever since he used the word “stippled” in a poem. Just that one word was enough. \*\* Why? This has got to be the silliest reason for disliking a poem I’ve ever come across. ---
**Author:** ![JubilationTCornpone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee59a6/32.png) [@JubilationTCornpone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JubilationTCornpone)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/37 "2002-04-23T04:26:21Z")
I would have to nominate an old classmate of mine who wrote the following: > [@](#): > > Nobody’s perfect > Not you, not she, not he > Nobody’s perfect > Not him, not her, not me > Nobody’s perfect > It’s very plain you see > \< and on, and on, and on… \> Before you ask… no, we weren’t six years old at the time. We were both high school juniors. He even submitted the poem to our school literary magazine, of which I was the editor. He was really upset when I kept refusing to publish the danged thing. ---
**Author:** ![Pergau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7c8e57/32.png) [@Pergau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pergau)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/38 "2002-04-23T12:47:10Z")
What about Pam Ayres? try [http://www.monologues.co.uk/My\_Teeth.htm](http://www.monologues.co.uk/My_Teeth.htm) It has to be read in the corect accent to appreciate the full awfulness. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/39 "2002-04-23T13:03:55Z")
Let’s not forget that immortal couplet: I’d rather fail my Wasserman test Than read the poetry of Sir Edgar Guest. TheWasserman test was for syphllis. Guest wrote incredible bad poetry, including “The Man in the Glass.” ---
**Author:** ![jessiecarol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e79b87/32.png) [@jessiecarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jessiecarol)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/40 "2002-04-23T13:12:37Z")
In my opinion - all of them - all over the world - don’t limit it to the United States. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731.md?page=3)