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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Donuel Date: 10 Jan 21 - 01:57 PM I would argue he was a lyricist first. A poetic turn of phrase was more rare but powerfully and organicly engaging. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Stilly River Sage Date: 10 Jan 21 - 01:50 PM Mudcat has it's own worst poet, who shall remain unnamed and unlinked. (Someone has to hold up Amos' end of this discussion, now that he's no longer here to do it himself. And Amos was a mighty fine poet!) |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Donuel Date: 10 Jan 21 - 12:00 PM Many Americans have no idea there are actually four official verses to the "Star-Spangled Banner" — and even fewer know about a little-known, unofficial fifth verse, written a half century later by poet Oliver Wendell Holmes. It goes like this: When our land is illum'd with Liberty's smile, If a foe from within strike a blow at her glory, Down, down, with the traitor that dares to defile The flag of her stars and the page of her story! By the millions unchain'd who our birthright have gained We will keep her bright blazon forever unstained! And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave While the land of the free is the home of the brave. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Amergin Date: 08 Jan 21 - 05:50 PM If you want trite bullshit that is inexplicably popular, you need look no further than Rupi Kaur. "to hate is an easy lazy thing but to love takes strength everyone has but not all are willing to practice" or "take the compliment do not shy away from another thing that belongs to you" or "i do not need the kind of love that is draining i want some one that energizes me" And yet these are somehow counted among her best poems. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Manitas_at_home Date: 08 Jan 21 - 05:56 AM Ah, I find that John Kirkpatrick has recorded it and credits Betjeman and Parker. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: weerover Date: 08 Jan 21 - 05:00 AM In the 70s a competition for "World's Worst Poet" was won by (a Paisley man, IIRC) Walter McCorrisken. His work owes something to McGonagall, but is distinctively a style of his own. I am sure plenty of his oeuvre will be available online. I remember reading somewhere that John Betjeman was not allowed to visit the home of a schoolmate during the holidays because his family were "in trade". Said schoolmate (Hugh Gaitskell) later became leader of the Labour Party! |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Jos Date: 08 Jan 21 - 04:42 AM Here's the blicky - it contains a link to a few snippets from the record. https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/feb/15/sir-john-betjeman-banana-blush |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Jos Date: 08 Jan 21 - 04:26 AM It's "A Shropshire Lad" from Betjeman's "Banana Blush", an album made by Betjeman in 1974 in collaboration with composer Jim Parker. https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/feb/15/sir-john-betjeman-banana-blush |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Manitas_at_home Date: 08 Jan 21 - 01:24 AM Was it Pete Coe that put that to music? |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: FreddyHeadey Date: 07 Jan 21 - 06:25 PM Oh I always love Betjeman's dripping and still he rose over the sill and faded away in a wall & Rigid and dead— Rigid and dead— To the Saturday congregation, Paying a call at Dawley bank on his way to his 'destination'. Well maybe they are lightweight or trite. At least they usually elicit an amused raised eyebrow or two. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: FreddyHeadey Date: 07 Jan 21 - 06:09 PM I love Donuel's When our faithful bundle departs this earthly world of strife, we'll get yet another pup, and love him all his life. - Author Unknown and looking at http://dogsympathycards.blogspot.com/p/dog-poems-and-quotes.html I can see that pets can turn everyone into a poet. Here's another The love that you showed us we'll never forget because to us you're one very special pet. You're like a star in the dark of night, always watching over us with the Lord's light. So now we take time to remember our best friend who will always be with us, even to the end. We'll always remember you the way you were, one big lovable huggable pile of fur. - Umbrellas, it seems, can make poets of us too. I refuse to quote or name names for fear of people goo-ego-gling themselves but take a look at https://hellopoetry.com/words/umbrellas/ No big names there to put forward as a candidate though. _________________ [ goo-ego-gling ? gooegoling ? is that not a word or is it spelt differently ? is 'themselves' tortology ? ] |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Jos Date: 06 Jan 21 - 11:10 AM Sadly I no longer have the author's original submission before it was 'tidied up' for her. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Jan 21 - 10:00 AM Ye gods! :-) But "frothy?" I should call a physician if I were her! |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Jos Date: 06 Jan 21 - 08:28 AM Here's my contribution. From Great Ways to Learn Anatomy and Physiology by Charmaine McKissock (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), a poem to “help you remember the function of the kidneys”: The Song of the Kidney Kids Let’s sing of the Kidney Kids, Kevin and Kate, Who both do a job anybody would hate. They collect up used blood both by night and by day, Which they filter to take the waste products away. Salts, drugs, uric acid, creatine and urea Are removed with some water to leave the blood clear. Then the toxic substance into urine is made, As frothy and yellow as fresh lemonade. This is poured through ureters – there are two of those – Into the bladder and out through a hose That is called the urethra. Your blood is now clean: No one would ever know where it had been. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Jan 21 - 07:45 AM The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography declared it to be the world's worst poem, Jos, finally outdoing the Tay Bridge Disaster... |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Jos Date: 06 Jan 21 - 07:36 AM That is certainly the 'worst poem' winner so far (my opinion, of course). |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Jan 21 - 07:25 AM Beat this for bad poetry! 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 by 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. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Jan 21 - 08:52 PM A cracker from the early 19th century: The Potato" by Eliza Cook (1818-1839) The useful and the beautiful Are not far apart we know. And thus the beautiful are glad to have, The homely looking Potato. On the land, or on the sea, Wherever we may go, We are always glad to welcome The homely Potato. A practical and moral lesson This may plainly show, That though homely, our heart can be Like that of the homely Potato. I mean, give over! :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 04 Jan 21 - 08:17 PM :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Jeri Date: 04 Jan 21 - 08:08 PM Hypochondriacs Spend the winter at the bottom of Florida and the summer on top of the Adirondacks. You go to Paris and live on champagne wine and cognac If you're a dipsomognac. If you're a manic-depressive You don't go anywhere where you won't be cheered up, and people say "There, there!" If your bills are excessive. But you stick around and work day and night and night and day with your nose to the sawmill If you're nawmill. Ogden Nash. (seriously, who else?) |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 04 Jan 21 - 06:47 PM I eat my peas with honey I've done it all my life It makes the peas taste funny But it keeps them on the knife |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Dave the Gnome Date: 04 Jan 21 - 05:33 PM As I was walking doon the road I saw a coo, a bull b'goad! |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 04 Jan 21 - 04:45 PM Another beauty: The umbrella, by Bruce Goodman I wish to tell you about my favourite thing, With a hey-nonny-no, It’s about my umbrella I wish to sing Hey ding a ding, ding. I stick my umbrella up a lot With a hey-nonny-no, Whether it’s raining or not Hey ding a ding, ding. The other day it hosed down With a hey-nonny-no, Just as I was leaving to go to town Hey ding a ding, ding. Suddenly a gust of wind blew it inside out. I started to twist and shout. What the hell is this all about? I was getting wet. No doubt. I hope I don’t get gout. Hey ding a ding, ding. My love for my umbrella was just recently awoken. Now it’s broken And I’m soakin’. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Bonzo3legs Date: 04 Jan 21 - 04:28 PM Like the shock of handling a raw sausage blindfold at a gay party!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 04 Jan 21 - 03:45 PM Here's a beaut from Ern Malley; Where I have lived The bed-bug sleeps in the seam, the cockroach Inhabits the crack and the careful spider Spins his aphorisms in the corner. . . . There is a moment when the pelvis Explodes like a grenade Bwahahaha! |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: The Sandman Date: 04 Jan 21 - 02:14 PM so now we have Wav, why could we not stick to mcgonagall, julia a moore a mckittrick ros |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Donuel Date: 04 Jan 21 - 02:09 PM David I agree a poem can tell a complex story like of Mice and Men in an abbreviated language but thats why prose is best. A miniature is nice and precise but a grand size feels alive. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 04 Jan 21 - 12:47 PM As in my poem "Audience Lost", free verse "poetry" in general, which adds up to a lot of poetry since Ezra Pound and co decided something like - to hell with metre and rhyme. As with American pop, rock, (c)rap, silk stockings, taking a knee for ALL/Black Lives Matter, etc., too many English and other nationals around the world have blindly followed...but, to end on a positive note, I sense, just recently, that trad metre and rhyme is making something of a comeback (whatever you may think of the WalkaboutsVerse variety). |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Backwoodsman Date: 04 Jan 21 - 12:20 PM LOL! :-) :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 04 Jan 21 - 12:15 PM Point taken. From a website on bad poetry: Rhyming is easy When you know how But this poem is cheesy So it’s time to say ciao :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 04 Jan 21 - 11:54 AM Well, Jeri, you might have thought that a thread starting "worst poets" would end up being a bit of light-hearted whimsy. After all, there's plenty of scope. Instead, one person here has sabotaged it, via posturing as an ill-tempered and fairly rude control freak, and it happens to be the thread's originator. Please target your criticisms of us slightly more accurately. From a poem called The Thorn: "...You see a little muddy pond Of water, never dry; I've measured it from side to side: 'Tis three feet long, and two feet wide." That was written by William Wordsworth. No, really... |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Jeri Date: 04 Jan 21 - 11:09 AM You have a choice to either discuss "worst poets" or go after each other, which seems to be a popular variety of blood-sport on Mudcat. The latter will get posts deleted and the thread closed. And "worst" is based on opinion. Period. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Raggytash Date: 04 Jan 21 - 09:22 AM The title of the thread is "worst poets" Now one persons worst poet may be another persons favourite poet. The opening post states that the poster has three candidates, not that they are the worst but that they are merely candidates, thus the thread should not be limited to those three alone. So crack on lads and lassies and discuss whom you choose to. One a personal note I would not criticise any poet, some I like, some I don't but more than anything I no time for critics. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Manitas_at_home Date: 04 Jan 21 - 08:43 AM What do you want me to understand? You started discussing Betjeman's background I merely pointed out that you had it, or a least part of it, wrong as you have agreed. It would make your posts a lot easier to understand if you would only use some capitals and a bit more punctuation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: The Sandman Date: 04 Jan 21 - 08:19 AM i am not being a stickler over spelling. Betjeman was born John Betjemann. He was the son of a prosperous silverware maker of Dutch descent. His parents, Mabel (née Dawson) and Ernest Betjemann, had a family firm at 34–42 Pentonville Road which manufactured the kind of ornamental household furniture and gadgets distinctive to Victorians. he went to fee paying schools, he was upper middle class and establishment, he wrote nothing that challenged the status quo, miss joan hunter dunn is an example of glorifying the upper and middle classes. ok, manitas, do you understand. tyis thread is not about betjeman coppin shakespeare wordsworth. john clare if you want to talk about them, do it somewhere else far from rescuing this thread steve you have sabotaged it. sitting on a loo in camden town joan hunter dunn with her knickers down hark the bell strikes ten past three has my crumpet done its pee |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Senoufou Date: 04 Jan 21 - 05:34 AM Could I just point out, The Sandman, since you are being a bit of a stickler, that you have misspelt one of your 'bad poets' names. It's William McGonagall, not mcgonagle. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 04 Jan 21 - 04:22 AM Poor Dick... |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Bonzo3legs Date: 04 Jan 21 - 04:09 AM I am working today, so better things to do!!!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Manitas_at_home Date: 04 Jan 21 - 03:54 AM Betjeman was far from upper-class. Upper middle at best. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: The Sandman Date: 04 Jan 21 - 02:47 AM bonzo has not heard of mcgonagle ,well bonzo start your own thread on johnny coppin. if people here think it is funny to feck up a thread deliberately with irrelevancies that just shows the level of their childishness, if it is accidental ,perhaps you should read the original posts more carefully. bonzo , the fact you have not heard of those bad poets is irrelevantwhy post other than as a wind up |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: The Sandman Date: 04 Jan 21 - 02:26 AM john betjeman was a product and a representive of the upper class. he was an establishment poet who glorified aspects of the british empire he was uncritical of the class sytem or the empire. in a subtle way betjeman glorifies the english upperclass and their tennis matches and miss jopan hunter dunn, all jolly hockey sticks jolly good chaps etc. jos, all you have to do is read the title of the post and the original thread, if you want to discuss other things start your own thread ,same applies to steve shaw. Subject: BS: worst poets From: The Sandman - PM Date: 02 Jan 21 - 05:44 PM i have 3 candidates, mcgonagle, julia a moore and a mckittrick ros, if people would like to select poems so we can decide who is the worst of the 3. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 03 Jan 21 - 08:32 PM You beat me to it, Bill... |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Bill D Date: 03 Jan 21 - 07:25 PM Oh... genuine doggerel.. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 03 Jan 21 - 06:11 PM My doggy pees On all the trees And poops on all the flowers. He does no tricks Like fetching sticks, Just licks himself for hours. :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Bonzo3legs Date: 03 Jan 21 - 06:03 PM Never heard of these 3 poets. Viv Stanshall was a clever poet!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Steve Shaw Date: 03 Jan 21 - 05:33 PM We can take it wherever we like, Jos. And I'd just like to say that one man's trite and lightweight is another man's life-affirming and lyrical. And that your last post, Dick, is misanthropic in the extreme. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Donuel Date: 03 Jan 21 - 05:20 PM Ohmywhatafauxpas!!! Only3thatwemaytalk? |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Donuel Date: 03 Jan 21 - 05:12 PM The canine ways will gladden you, His antics bring a smile, As a faithful friend he will, Be loyal all the while. He'll bring his charms to grace your life, And though his stay is brief, When he's gone the memories, Are solace for our grief. I cannot promise he will stay, All on earth won't return, But lessons only a dog can teach, I want you each to learn. I've looked the whole world over, In search of guardians true, And from the folk that crowd life's land, I have chosen you. Whatever love you give to him, Returns in triple measure, Follow his lead and gain a life, Brim full of simple pleasures. Enjoy each day as it comes, Allow your heart to guide, Be loyal and steadfast in love, As the dog there by your side. Now will you give him all your love, Nor think the labor vain, Nor hate me when all is done, To see him go again? I guess each of us would say, A glad heaart is not all they have For all the joys this dog shall bring, The risk of grief can stun. We'll shelter him with tenderness, We'll love him while we may, And for the happiness we've known, over the grateful days. But should the angels call for him, Much sooner than we've planned, We'll brave the bitter grief that comes, And try to understand. If by our love we've managed, to make his life a joy, In memory of him that we have loved, And to help us while we grieve; When our faithful friend departs, This earthly world of strife, We'll just get another pup, And love him all his life. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Jos Date: 03 Jan 21 - 05:04 PM I am so sorry, Sandman, I didn't realise we were restricted to your three chosen poets and not allowed to discuss the merits or otherwise of any other poets we might be more familiar with. I'll leave you to it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: worst poets From: Jos Date: 03 Jan 21 - 04:56 PM Well here is a poem by Betjeman with no class, no empire, no tennis, no sex, nothing that I, at least, find trite. Winter Seascape The sea runs back against itself With scarcely time for breaking wave To cannonade a slatey shelf And thunder under in a cave Before the next can fully burst. The headwind, blowing harder still, Smooths it to what it was at first — A slowly rolling water-hill. Against the breeze the breakers haste, Against the tide their ridges run And all the sea's a dappled waste Criss-crossing underneath the sun. Far down the beach the ripples drag Blown backward, rearing from the shore, And wailing gull and shrieking shag Alone can pierce the ocean roar. Unheard, a mongrel hound gives tongue, Unheard are shouts of little boys: What chance has any inland lung Against this multi-water noise? Here where the cliffs alone prevail I stand exultant, neutral, free, And from the cushion of the gale Behold a huge consoling sea. |
