# 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:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![moodtobestewed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ab097/32.png) [@moodtobestewed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moodtobestewed)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/41 "2002-04-23T13:52:12Z")
Jonathan Swift wrote his fair share of [doggerel.](http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/swift2.html/) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/42 "2002-04-23T16:01:23Z")
That’s two people who quote the couplet about Guest–it was writtn by Dorothy Parker. Elfkin, I politley disagree with you about Whitman–the greatest poet the US has yet produced. But as for the OP? E.E. Cummings is the worst. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/43 "2002-04-23T16:23:02Z")
[hijack] > [@](#): > > I politley disagree with you about Whitman–the greatest poet the US has yet produced I’ll agree that he’s in the running. But I think **Robert Frost** might be the best. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/44 "2002-04-23T20:15:36Z")
Allen Ginsburg. Oh, I don’t hate him so much for his own stuff (awful though that usually was), but because he inspired thousands of other people even LESS talented than he was to get out a set of bongos and start making up nonsensical babble. ---
**Author:** ![Sauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2002, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/45 "2002-04-23T20:37:39Z")
Nope, **elfkin477** has it right. Whitman has been officially declared the worst poet ever considered great. By me, anyway. I enjoyed most of the poetry I read in high school and college, but Whitman’s stuff was fingernails on a blackboard to me. It didn’t help that one of my college lit professors thought the literary sun rose and set on the man’s left testicle, either. ---
**Author:** ![Jabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@Jabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jabba)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2002, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/46 "2002-04-24T00:48:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by astorian \* > \*\*Allen Ginsburg. > > Oh, I don’t hate him so much for his own stuff (awful though that usually was), but because he inspired thousands of other people even LESS talented than he was to get out a set of bongos and start making up nonsensical babble. \*\* This is harsh. You could criticise almost every notable artist in every genre on a similar charge. ---
**Author:** ![A\_wizard\_song\_for\_thee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/46a35a/32.png) [@A\_wizard\_song\_for\_thee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_wizard_song_for_thee)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2002, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/47 "2002-04-24T06:00:24Z")
Emily godsdamned reclusive-and-unpublished-for-a-reason Dickinson. I mean, come on, “debauchee of dew”? I think I just vomited a little bit, in the back of my throat… ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2002, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/48 "2002-04-24T06:28:58Z")
**Wallace Stevens** , whose **Emperor of Ice Cream** makes no sense to me whatsover. “Let be be the finale of seem…” and when he opted to use **curds** instead of **turds** he lost it with me. 🙂 I would, however like to put in a plug for **Dean Koontz** whose poems from his **Book of Counted Sorrows** are surprisingly well written. Quasi ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2002, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/49 "2002-04-24T12:27:07Z")
My vote would go to **Carl Sandburg**. Die-hard Chicagoan though I may be, I never quite understood why his works get included in the Norton Anthology. Although my major’s concentration was the poetry of the Romantics, I must say that **William Wordsworth** certainly had his share of laboured, monotonous, self-obsessive tripe. That said, his canonical works are still among my favourite poems of all-time. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2002, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731/50 "2002-04-24T12:48:22Z")
I have to agree with **astorian** , and even go a step further. Allen Ginsberg is completely berefit of any poetic talent. Reading his poetry is akin to shoving white hot pokers in every orifice in my body at once. Just read his poem, **America.**. (I’d link it, but I suspect it’s copywrited) It’s not poetry, it’s a talentless, bad rant that you expect to find in the Pit. Ohhhhh, but he’s so avant guard. No, he sucks. Badly. Like a vacuum. And he revels in how much he sucks. Ugh. Now I have to go read Poe to get my head right again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-all-time-worst-poet-of-the-english-language/104731.md?page=2)