How not to write poetry

Steel your nerves. It is necessary for art to face up to the following horrors. I have collected some examples of desperately hopeless attempts at poetry. First the master himself, Dundee's own William McGonagall.

Glasgow
by William McGonagall

Beautiful city of Glasgow, with your streets so neat and clean,
Your stately mansions, and beautiful Green!
Likewise your beautiful bridges across the river Clyde,
And on your bonnie banks I would like to reside.

Chorus
Then away to the West -- to the beautiful West!
To the fair city of Glasgow that I like the best,
Where the river Clyde rolls on to the sea,
And the lark and the blackbird whistle with glee.

'Tis beautiful to see ships passing to and fro,
Laden with goods for the high and the low,
So let the beautiful city of Glasgow flourish,
And may the inhabitants always find food their bodies to nourish.

Chorus

The statue of the prince of Orange is very grand,
Looking terror to the foe, with a truncheon in his hand,
And well mounted on a noble steed, which stands in Trongate,
And holding up its foreleg, I'm sure it looks first-rate.

Chorus

Then there's the Duke of Wellington's statue in Royal Exchange Square ---
It is a beautiful statue I without fear declare,
Besides inspiring and most magnificent to view,
Because he made the French fly at the battle of Waterloo.

Chorus

And as for the statue of Sir Walter Scott that stands in George Square,
It is a handsome statue --- few can with it compare,
And most elegant to be seen,
And close beside it stands the statue of Her Majesty the Queen.

Chorus

Then there's the statue of Robert Burns in George Square,
And the treatment he received when living was very unfair;
Now when he's dead, Scotland's sons for him do mourn,
But, alas! unto them he can never return.

Chorus

Then as for Kelvin Grove, it is most lovely to be seen,
With its beautiful flowers and trees so green,
And a magnificent water-fountain spouting up very high,
Where the people can quench their thirst when they feel dry.

Chorus

Beautiful city of Glasgow, I now conclude my muse,
And to write in praise of thee my pen does not refuse;
And, without fear of contradiction, I will venture to say
You are the second grandest city in Scotland at the present day!

Chorus

Bear in mind that one person's doggerel might be another person's winged poesy. The literary theorist F. R. Leavis invited his students to decide whether they would accept or reject the following poem, if they were editing a poetry magazine:

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

So what would be your decision?*

Here are a few more choice ones I found at this Index of Bad Poems, where you can find more amusement as well as a collection of favourite poems. Here are my lowlights:

By Julia Moore, the Sweet Singer of Michigan

My childhood days have passed and gone,
And it fills my heart with pain
To think that youth will nevermore
Return to me again.
And now kind friends, what I have wrote,
I hope you will pass o'er,
And not criticize, as some have done,
Hitherto herebefore.

from Julia Moore, "The Author's Early Life"

Myself
Edgar Guest

I have to live with myself, and so,
I want to be fit for myself to know;
I want to be able as days go by,
Always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don't want to stand with the setting sun
And hate myself for the things I've done.
I don't want to keep on a closet shelf
A lot of secrets about myself,
And fool myself as I come and go
Into thinking that nobody else will know
The kind of man I really am;
I don't want to dress myself up in sham.
I want to deserve all men's respect;
But here in this struggle for fame and pelf,
I want to be able to like myself.
I don't want to think as I come and go
That I'm for bluster and bluff and empty show.
I never can hide myself from me,
I see what others may never see,
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself -- and so,
Whatever happens, I want to be
Self-respecting and conscience free.

What is Liquid?
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle

All that doth flow we cannot liquid name
Or else would fire and water be the same;
But that is liquid which is moist and wet
Fire that property can never get.
Then 'tis not cold that doth the fire put out
But 'tis the wet that makes it die, no doubt.

A Tragedy
Theophilus Marzials

Death!
Plop.

The barges down in the river flop.

Flop, plop.
Above, beneath.

From the slimy branches the grey drips drop,
As they scraggle black on the thin grey sky,
Where the black cloud rack-hackles drizzle and fly
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop
On the black scrag piles, where the loose cords plop,
As the raw wind whines in the thin tree-top.

Plop, plop.
(etc etc etc. I can't take any more...)

What about those incomprehensible ones by acclaimed modern poets. You know the type...

Gradual platonic henbane
Whereupon
Lacking Horace's cliff-
hanger
Pleistocene ferrets
Do you want to be a
Fakir?
She swallows a compendium
of
gewgaws. And
on and
on and
on...

Here's a list of poetic pratfalls:

No Compression:
If it can be summarised more succinctly then to hell with it. I mean I could have gone to Glasgow, seen for myself and home again in the time it takes to recite McGonagall's tourist brochure.

Platitudes:
Things we have heard over and over, commonplace things one can overhear in discussions on a bus any day. My youth has passed me by. I'll never see forty again.

Poetic Diction:
I hope you will pass o'er.

Forced rhymes:
Hitherto herebefore.
Need I say more?

The Didactic:
What is Liquid? by the Duchess of Newcastle should be a scientific article, if anything, and not by her.

Triviality:
Subjects of no great interest. Myself by Edgar Guest: "I have to ... I want .. I want to ..." Who cares?

Fatal Flaws / Absurdities:
I want to be able always to look myself straight in they eye. (At least it's funny.)

Pretension
A Tragedy - by Theophilus Marzial . Yes, it is.

Jerry-built Rhythms and Rhyme:
Either the thing has a set rhythm (meter) or it hasn't. If it is supposed to go
The more it snows
Tiddly-pom
The more it goes
Tiddly-pom
The more it goes on snowing (Winnie the Pooh)

you don't want a tiddly-om-pom-tiddly-tiddly-pom in the middle.

Half the joy of poems is in their marvellous structure. You wouldn't sell a house with the doors all askew and the walls not joining at the corners. (Then again, I have seen a house like that for sale - one of those kennels in Beckton.)

Noël Knowall

*The poem is "To a young child" by the great Gerard Manley Hopkins.