'Tis a great pity that Miss Moore and Mr McGonagall never met, for they surely would have been smitten with one another and together have formed the most memorable poetic union of ALL time! (giggle)

We used to read McGonagall's tortured epics in the drawing room on special occasions, like New Year's, and all laugh uproariously. "The Tay Bridge Disaster" remains our favourite, and is probably his "greatest" work, if you know what I mean...

Now I am indebted to Mudcat Cafe for providing the good folk of Twillingsgate with the key to a whole new library of dreadful poetry to be read on festive occasions. How wonderful! Julia Moore is definitely as wretchedly bad a poet as McGonagall, and she delivers a fresh North American twist to the genre of really bad poetry from that great age when train moguls still vied for supremacy across the rugged expanses of the American West and Americans still played cricket. What a grand time it must have been!

The interesting thing is, McGonagall and Moore have probably brought more mirth and enjoyment to the human race than the top 50 serious "good" poets of the last 300 years...and that is no small accomplishment in its own way, is it? Perhaps that is why they had the fortitude to persist despite a conspicuous lack of talent. Heavenly guidance, my friends! The Wind of God was at their backs.

Now, I think this thread deserves a contribution from one of my most persistent suitors, who referred to himself as "Ever Madly (In Love With You)" or just "E.M.". I haven't heard from him in a few months now. I suspect he has either given it up at last (one hopes)...or thrown himself off a railway bridge (he threatened to on several occasions)...but...his poetry stands for all time:

Ode to Ms Rutledge

Penelope Rutledge, O Vision sublime!
I think of you often, and wish you were mine
I think of you tripping down library stairs
The sun on your bonnet, the wind in your hair
No melody bright could express all you are
No vision of light and no heavenly star
No sunrise at dawn could encompass your grace
No vista at twilight could e'er match your face
I sit in my room and envision you now
The queen of my conscience, the wave at my bow
My ships are all stranded, now wretched they pine
No sails on their yardarms, no grapes on my vine
My vineyards are barren, my cats have no mice
My parrot has sought therapeutic advice
My hallway is empty, my phone's on the fritz
Penelope Rutledge, I love you to bits!
My hopes they are waning, as silent I wait
Intolerably distant from fair Twillingsgate
If not for thy grace I would plunge from the skies
As an albatross falls to his final demise
Yet hope springs anew with each stroke of my pen
That my words may yet sway you, and move you, and then
That together at last we may write history
With me beside you, dear, and you beside me
Penelope Rutledge, O Vision sublime!
I think of you often, and wish you were mine

E. M.

I can never read it without collapsing into helpless laughter. The part about the parrot is particularly moving, but I think it is the man, not the bird, who is in need of "therapeutic advice"! Oh my! (getting short of breath here...)

He is though somewhat better a poet, technically speaking, than either Moore or Mcgonagall.

* PR