"It's a sinking feeling that pulls me through the seated chairs / when will you come rescue me"

[larryhammer]

To my surprise, our local science fiction convention took me up on my programming proposal: a round-robin bad poetry reading. And put me in charge of it. Little do they know.

Any suggestions for what I should bring? I mean, of course the collected McGonagall, and as much Julia Moore and Thomas Holly Chivers as I can dig up. But I can't bring just anything. It has to be a specific kind of bad poetry, for reading aloud -- the sort of bad that's hard to spit out, whether from laughter or nausea or hysterical fits. Or possibly from being possessed by one of the elder gods. (Let us hope they came to put a stop to it rather than being invoked.)

So what else? Help me, O lazywebs!

---L.

Comments

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" - a classic.

[larryhammer]

A classic indeed.

---L.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

I am not Spock.

[larryhammer]

Is there an actual poem? I just know it as a book.

---L.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait, I may be thinking of the wrong thing. Leonard Nimoy has several books of poems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Nimoy#Poetry) that I've heard people mock a fair bit, with occasional readings of same; I kind of avoid it, because he seems like a nice person and I feel kind of icky about the mockery. (The person who mostly does it is someone is meaner than I like to be around.)

[larryhammer]

From what I've seen of his poetry, he's a better photographer.

---L.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

Lol, yes, that's why I mentioned it. It's just that I can't speak to the badness firsthand.

[harvestar.livejournal.com]

Fungi from Yuggoth by H.P. Lovecraft

(Patrick's suggestion upon me reading your post aloud.)

[larryhammer]

!! -- a Lovecraft sonnet cycle, of all things glorious.

The sad thing is, they're poetically competent -- it's the content where it falls down.

---L.

More bad poetry

[chris hunt (from livejournal.com)]

I'm the webmaster of McGonagall Online - thanks for the link!

Of course nobody comes close to the great poet and tragedian of Dundee, but if you want a bit of variety, how about James McIntyre (http://www.swiftandbored.com/mcintyre/)? A man who brought a whole new meaning to "cheesy rhymes"!

Re: More bad poetry

[larryhammer]

Oo! I've seen extracts of his cheese odes in the usual anthologies, but this is a lode of true cheese. Thanks for the link!

(I've been enjoying my weekly dose of McGonagall through your email widgit for several years now -- thanks for making it so configurable that I can keep my dosage at manageable levels.)

---L.