(Blogging tip: By inserting a “?” I can get away with making over-the-top claims in my headlines! Brilliant.)
If you haven’t read the poetry of William Topaz McGonagall, you must. He was celebrated in his day (as in ours) as one of the worst poets in the English language — but in the “so bad it’s good” sort of way.
Anyway, here’s a bit of his most famous work, “The Tay Bridge Disaster”:
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
His body of work is actually pretty impressive for someone with so little talent. He wrote over 200 poems, frequently using the same rhymes from poem to poem (”lay”/”dismay”), and with the same disregard for meter (”And which no one dare gainsay,/But that you are the grandest city in Scotland at the present day!”) and atmosphere (”For God He turned the ball aside/Maclean aimed at her head;/And he felt very angry/Because he didn’t shoot her dead.”).
New favorite poet.
