Is reputed to be by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, that normally pretty cool guy and The Lady Of Shallot (from Idylls of the King):
“Only reapers, reaping early,”
What is your vote?
Heavens, that’s not even a contender. From Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (which I love): “For when was Lancelot wanderingly lewd?”
“Something had happened wrong about a bill/Which was not drawn with true mercantile skill.” – George Herbert, writer of some of the most magnificent religious poetry in English (and Latin). But he was a man of little humor, alas.
And of course, there’s Wordsworth’s “We Are Seven” in its entirety. Or Wordsworth, in his entirety.
Catrandom
If you’re truely interested in the worst of the worst poetry, pick up a copy of “Very Bad Poetry,” edited by Kathryn and Ross Petras. It’s one of my all time favorite books. Some highlights:
Lillian Curtis, “The Potato”:
What on this wide earth, /That is made, or does by nature grow/ Is more homely, yet more beautiful/ Than the useful potato?
It goes on. For 7 more stanzas.
James McIntyre, “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese”
We have seen thee, queen of cheese/ lying quietly at your ease/ Gently fanned by evening breeze/ thy fair form no flies dare seize…
This guy wrote quite a few poems about cheese. Oy…
J. W. Scholl, “The Light-Bearer of Liberty”
Gooing babies, helpless pygmies,
Who shall solve your Fate’s enigmas?
From Wordsworth: “Give me your tool, to him I said.” <groan>
Fred Emerson Brooks wrote a poem, “Foreigners on Santa Claus,” which contains the following verses, written in dialect.
The bonnie Scotchman niver doot
Wi’ Scots Wauhai!
That Santa Claus goes a’ aboot…
which segues into
We have ze Santa Claus een France
We see him when we get ze chance.
Other great poem titles: The Stuttering Lover, Elegy on a Dissected Puppy, Calamity in London: Faimly of Ten Burned to Death, Go Away, Death!, and Dentologia- A Poem on the Diseases of the Teeth.
andygirl
Oh, how could I forget? 
This is undoutably one of the worst I’ve ever read… Every single line is a contender.
“A tragedy” by Theophile Marzials
Death!
Plop.
The barges down in the river flop.
Flop, plop,
Above, beneath.
From the slimy branches the grey drips drop…
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop…
And my head shrieks-“Stop”
And my heart shrieks-“Die”
Ugh! Yet I knew- I knew
If a woman is false can a friend be true?
It was only a lie from beginning to end-
My Devil- My “friend.”…
So what do I care,
And my head is empty as air-
I can do,
I can dare
(Plop, plop
The barges flop
Drip, drop.)
I can dare, I can dare!
And let myself all run away with my head
And stop.
Drop
Dead.
Plop, flop.
Plop.
Golly, Alfred, Lord Tennyson is vindicated several times over.
And I trusted Fr. Deboiser at Catholic High, G-d rest him.
Tennyson wrote my favorite poem, Ulysses.
“…to rust unburnished, not to shine in use.
…to have drunk delight of battle with my peers, far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.”
“…not unbecoming men who strove with gods.”
Cool.
Which poem is that from? I don’t remember it from Idylls of the King.
With apologies to whoever on this board claims to be related to Joyce Kilmer, I think that the entire poem “I think that I shall never see/A poem as lovely as a tree…” has got to be in the running.
No.
He died in W.W.I
He also wrote :If I should die at some disputed…"
Damn, I forget.
(Blush) It may not be there. My edition is of Idylls is quite old, from before Tennyson’s death, and I forget that it doesn’t always match up with later editions. If it’s there in your edition, it’s in the Perceval section; it’s he who says those silly words, referring to those who speculate that Lance is Galahad’s father. (Did I mention I love the Idylls?)
Catrandom
Anything published by (insert greeting card company here). I’m at the point now where I buy blank cards. I’m too embarrassed to send such bad poetry to people I like.
You’d never believe the crap they’re printing in wedding and sympathy cards right now!
Edgar Guest wrote some of the worst poetry
imaginable. Ever read The Man in the Glass?
Someone once penned:
I’d rather fail my Wasserman test
Than read the poetry of Edgar Guest.
The Wasserman test detects syphillis.
William Carlos Williams. The Red Wheelbarrow. Hands down.
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
When I was taking freshman English at Washington & Lee, a professor asked me what I thought this thing meant. I think I responded with something like, “You’re freaking kidding me with this, right?”
…and go with Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England.
Here is a sample:
The dead swans lay in the stagnent pool.
They lay. They rotted. They turned
Around occassionally.
Bits of flesh dropped off them from
Time to time.
And sank into the pool’s mire.
They also smelt a great deal.
Find out more about this and the 2nd and 3rd worst poetry in the galaxy at http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~nhughes/dna/docs/poetry.html
I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned William McGonagall yet.
Surely that man was the epitome of bad poetry. Even worse, he was convinced of his talent. Revel in a sample:
"Angus McDonald must have felt the pangs of hunger before he did try
to cut two pieces of fiesh from James McDonald’s thigh,
But, Oh heaven! the pangs of hunger are very hard to thole,
And anything that’s eatable is precious unto an hungry soul. "
or, more romantic:
“So he leap’d into the river wide,
And swam across to the other side,
To fetch a flower for his young bride,
Who watched him eagerly on the other side.”
Ahh, read them for yourselves at http://www.dundee22.freeserve.co.uk/gems1.htm
The man was a misunderstood genius.
Don’t. Diss. “Mammoth Cheese”.
The work in its full, unedited glory, can be found HERE.
Michael Enright when he was on CBC’s As it Happens, would usually recite this poem at least once a year. It was as much a tradition as the eccentric Brit stories, located by reference to Reading.
I used to have a copy. I lent it to someone I’d just started dating. Never do that.
There are more bad poems by bad poets than you can shake a stick at, but if we’re talking poems by normally cool guys, I nominate Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Christabel.” If Dr. Seuss tried to write a Gothic novel, it would probably sound something like this.
Oh baby. The only thing worse than bad poetry is bad poetry from the Old Masters.
All-time #1 worst line of poetry:
"Smiling, the boy fell dead."
– “Incident of the French Camp” by Robert Browning
Runners-up:
"So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her he sprung!"
– “Lochinvar” by Sir Walter Scott
(What this means is, in the poem he hoists her up on the horse first, so she’s sitting on its rump, and then he somehow violates all the laws of physics by mounting the horse in front of her. The way you get up on a horse is, you stand on the horse’s left side, put your left leg in the left stirrup, and swing your right leg over the horse’s rump and onto the other side. All I can figure is, he must have either done some kind of interdimensional warp to swing his right leg through her body, or else some kind of circus trickriding leap up onto the saddle from in front. Either way, it’s risible.)
"…when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet."
– “Waterloo” by Lord Byron
(For some reason this always conjures up the mental image of soccer. Instead of being in the ballroom dancing, Youth and Pleasure are out in the street, kicking a ball around.)
"O’er rough and smooth she trips along…"
– “Lucy Gray” by William Wordsworth
(She trips whether it’s rough or smooth? About what I’d expect from a kid who gets lost going into town and manages to fall off the local plank footbridge and disappear forever)
Also from the same poem:
"–The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door."
(Huh? She’s a weed?)
"‘Fly! My Lord Bishop, fly,’ quoth he,
‘Ten thousand rats are coming this way–’"
– “Bishop Hatto” by Robert Southey
(I always wonder who’s counting.)
"Fondly to his heart she clings,
And her bosom guards his life!"
– “Pocahontas” by William Makepeace Thackeray
(Um, you probably don’t want to know what goes on in my head when I read this. I’ll give you a hint, it rhymes with “bits”.)
And in the “Just Shoot Me” category:
Runner-up:
"Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower…"
–“Evelyn Hope” by Robert Browning
[gesture of sticking finger down throat]
From the same poem:
"What is the issue? let us see!"
Evidently Dead Evelyn still has issues.
And in the “Just Shoot Me” category, the Grand Prize Winner:
"Over his keys the musing organist,
Beginning doubtfully and far away,
First lets his fingers wander as they list,
And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay…"
– “The Vision of Sir Launfal” by James Russell Lowell
(It just makes me wanna go over there and smack the doubtful, wandering organist. “Get on with it, willya?”)
(Also, the meter sucks big-time.
“O-ver his KEYS the MUS-ing OR-gan-IST,
this next line is the one that really reeks
Be-GIN-ning DOUBT-ful-ly and FAR a-WAY,
and then it’s back to business, sheesh
First LETS his FIN-gers WAN-der AS they LIST,” etc.
Okay, I know the syllables add up, but there’s more to iambic pentameter than that, Jimbo.)
I totally agree about the William Carlos Williams, although I think this is even worse than the wheelbarrow:
This Is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Augh, it just grates. I have also seen this:
Lines on a sick gypsy
There we leave her,
There we leave her,
Far from where her swarthy kindred roam,
In the Scarlet Fever,
Scarlet Fever,
Scarlet Fever Convalescent Home.
“This is just to say” is one of the great 20th century poems. Why? Because in a few simple words, Willams paints an entire relationship between two people – without ever talking about relationships or love (which is what the poem is essentially about). Anyone can write a poem saying, “I love you.” But it takes genius to say it without saying the words. If you can’t appreciate that, I feel very sorry for you. Hallmark is more your speed.
“The Red Wheelbarrow” is also a great poem, though in a different way (and part of it was due to the historical context). Williams evokes a scene and a mystery, again, without directly describing any of it.
The worst poetry I read was when I was business manager of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Occasionally someone would think I was the editor and send a submission. They were truly atrocious, usually because they strained to rhyme and ignored any attempt to keep a rhythm.
All of the above are rank amateurs compared to my nomination. And this was written before thesauruseses.
The “cataract” is a very modest little brook that falls about 40 feet over rocks.
The Cataract of Lodore
Robert Southey
‘How does the Water
Come down at Lodore?’
My little boy ask’d me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he task’d me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon at the work,
There first came one daughter
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store:
And 'twas in my vocation
For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King.
From its sources which well
In the Tarn on the fell;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;
Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For awhile, till it sleeps
It its own little Lake.
And thence at departing,
Awakenig and staring;
It runs though the reeds
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-scurry.
Here it comes sparking,
And there it lies darkling;
Now smoaking and frothing
Its tumult and wrath in,
Till in this rapid race
On which it is bent,
It reaches the place
Of its steep descent.
The Cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging
As if a war waging
Its caverns and rocks among:
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping;
Showering and springing,
Flying and glinging,
Writhing and ringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around
With endless rebound!
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding,
Dizzing and deafening the ear with its sound.
Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And ratting and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowering and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dinning and spinning
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning;
And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And thundering and floundering;
Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling and sprawling,
And driving and riving and striving,
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
And grumbling rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering battering and shattering;
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending,
All at once all all o’er, with a mighty uproar,
And this way the Water comes down at Lodore.