"Death! / Plop. / The barges down the river flop. / Flop. Plop."

[larryhammer]

The Bad Poetry Round Robin at TusCon 39 was quite fun -- much laughter was had by all who came, and a couple people even made it through an entire poem without losing their straight face (I wasn't one of them). The bill of fare:

• "How Strange Are Dreams!" J. Gordon Coogler
  
• "The Tey Bridge Disaster," William McGonagall
  
• "A New Temperance Poem, In Memory of My Departed Parents, Who Were Sober Living & Godfearing People," William McGonagall
  
• "A Tragedy," Theophilus Marzials
  
• "The Albion Battleship Tragedy," William McGonagall
  
• "Ode to the Mammoth Cheese, Weight Over Seven Thousand Pounds," James McIntyre
  
• "The Tomato," William B. Tappan
  
• "Alcohol's Requiem upon Prof. P.F.K., a Gifted Man, Who Died a Victim to Strong Drink," Ella Wheeler Wilcox
  
• "Oxford Cheese Ode," James McIntyre
  
• "Prophecy of a Ten Ton Cheese," James McIntyre

The best part was possibly how one reader couldn't even make it through the entire title of "A New Temperance Poem" before breaking down, though another highlight was Tappan's waxing so enthusaistic about tomatoes that he apparently didn't notice how he slipped in and out of sexual innuendo, which had an effect even odder than if he'd stayed smuttily passionate throughout.

The Coogler was an interesting find -- the first four lines were anthologized in The World's Worst Poetry: An Anthology edited by Stephen Robins, and everybody quotes just this. It turns out there are reasons for this. Witness the full text:

"How Strange Are Dreams!"

How strange are dreams!—I dreamed the other night
  A dream that made me tremble,
    Not with fear, but a kind of strange reality;
My supper, though late, consisted of no cheese,
  No salmouds, pies or wine had passed these lips.

How strange are dreams!—they carry us far away
  To scenes too long forgotten,
    Away back in our early childhood days,
Picturing our lives in a pure and simple way,
  Not as they were spent, nor when ; but where.

How strange are dreams!—they have their boundless world,
  With trees, hills and lakes,
    And flowers of various kinds and hues—
Spirits of friends and loved ones long departed
  And perhaps too long forgotten—they are there.

How strange are dreams!—If death be like a dream—
  A pure and happy dream—
    How blissful and sweet must be our final end,
To emerge from a sinful world to find ourselves
  In dreams—dreaming through all eternity.

See? The absent cheese really is the best bad part.

---L.