What was the worst poem ever written?

[Mary in KC]

I found an old poetry anthology from 1937 that has some of the worst things I have ever read.

Little Woodland God No date but this has to be Victorian
Judy Van der Veer

I think that surely there's a god
For little hunted things;
A god whose eyes watch tenderly
The droop of dying wings.

A little woodland god who sits
Beneath a forest tree,
With baby rabbits in his arms,
and squirrels on his knee.

And when a hunter bravely shoots
A deer with dreaming eyes,
I think that little god is there
To love it when it dies.

But all the hungry, orphan things
Who weakly call and call
For mothers who can never come--
He loves the best of all.

He tells the breeze to softly blow,
He tells the leaves to fall:
He covers little frightened things
When they have ceased to call.

I think his pensive Pan-like face
Is often wet with tears,
And that his little back is bent
From all the weary years.


That one is going to be hard to beat.

[johnnie]

1. This one

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Sugar is sweet
And salt isn't as sweet as sugar.

[ET Awful]

2. Oh freddled gruntbuggly

thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee my foonting turlingdromes.
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
see if I don't!

Or, of course, there's that ever-famous "Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in my Armpit one Summer's Morning" by Grunthos the Faltulent.

[DelawareValleyDem]

3. Vogon poetry is only the third worst in the universe

The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paul Neil Milne Johnstone of Redbridge, in the destruction of the planet Earth


http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/v/vo/vogon_poetry.html

[ET Awful]

5. And having perished is no longer in the running

thus I listed Vogon poetry and the "Ode to a lump of green putty" note.

[SnowGoose]

4. I don't know which one is worst, but it has to be some poem by

Ogden freaking Nash. How that hack ever got published is beyond me - his poems are so bad, I actually feel malice toward the guy.

Ogden Nash's poems,
Butterscotch,
Bush's Face:

The three most revolting sensory experiences on this good Earth.

[ET Awful]

6. Hey! I like butterscotch. . . .

But you were right on 2 out of 3.

[MercutioATC]

7. Anything by Emily Dickinson

An example:


I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!


Methinks there was a reason she spent her entire adult life as a shut-in...

[BlueIris]

8. Fye on thee, Satan!!!

Emily Dickinson is the most difficult poet to study (in English) I have yet encountered. And amazingly enjoyable, considering the complexity and impenetrable brilliance of her poems.

[MercutioATC]

11. I hadn't considered that. You may be right!

...or maybe she was just a rambling shut-in...


:evilgrin:

[Debi]

9. There was an old man from Nantuckett....

:spray:

[emulatorloo]

10. "The Lump In The Bed," by GWBush 2003

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Oh my, lump in the bed
How I've missed you.
Roses are redder
Bluer am I
Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy.
The dogs and the cat, they missed you too
Barney's still mad you dropped him, he ate your shoe
The distance, my dear, has been such a barrier
Next time you want an adventure, just land on a carrier.

(Google it if you don't remember this and think I'm kidding)

[ironflange]

12. William Topaz McGonagall

Take your pick:

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/index.shtml

I'm particularly fond of "Greenland's Icy Mountains." Here's a bit:

The icy mountains they're higher than a brig's topmast,
And the stranger in amazement stands aghast
As he beholds the water flowing off the melted ice
Adown the mountain sides, that he cries out, Oh! how nice!

Such sights as these are truly magnificent to be seen,
Only that the mountain tops are white instead of green,
And rents and caverns in them, the same as on a rugged mountain side,
And suitable places, in my opinion, for mermaids to reside.



Some think McGonagall was the original troll, that he was deliberately bad, but I don't know. There is a real note of sincerity in his, er, work.