The editors of this book must have literally enjoyed a hoot when compiling this compellingly readable selection of extracts of Bad Verse emanating from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

What is so enchanting about the exquisite breadth of Bad Verse to be found within the pages of “The Stuffed Owl”, is that as one wipes the tears of laughter from ones’ eyes, one winces for those mighty poets brought verily so to their knees. As a Brit, I cautiously venture to suggest that the following couplet might be inserted into the rites of every North American family’s Thanksgiving dinner:

“At last, by favour of Almighty God,
With bellying sail the fathers made Cape Cod”
-- Alfred Austin, “The Pilgrim Fathers” (pg.250)

Yet it was only after chortling and snorting my way through this book that I thought to look to see if, as I imagined, NYRB might have reviewed this book back in the mid-twentieth century. Sure enough “Slate” had, in 2003; at http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints... To boot, decent length biographies of Wyndham Lewis and Lee are also included.

Could “A Newly Stuffed Owl” ever take flight? Alas, I think not. The recognisable fundamental quality of stuffed-owlishness appears to require but a fleeting moment’s overheating of the unconscious imagination, prompted, produced and propelled into its full glory by the time-deficient scrabble of desperation to snatch that perfect line of metrical verse from the grasp of coquettish Muses.

I wonder, do Roger McGough and Wendy Cope -- two present-day wizards of disciplined and memorable verse emanating from wonderfully lively, experienced and practiced minds conjuring with great skill within formal rules --- have their own moments of stuffed-owlishness, -- only to be saved by their publishers?

Be inspired by “The Stuffed Owl”, and Charles Lee’s wickedly humorous verse introduction (pp.xxi-xxiv), from which:

… So sing the Masters of Bathetic Verse. / Follow their lead : do better, doing worse. …”.

DNF but mostly enjoyed what I did read

One of my all-time favorites, this book is filled with the most glorious clunkers ever to grace a the English language, and a tremendous index to boot. Here's a taste, about a gentleman who accidentally ate a poisonous mushroom: And in a dark and trying hour / (Man hath his days of woe!), / He found in vegetable power / A dreadful, deadly foe!

A book to be read aloud with thespian overembellishment.
It's a ... real hoot.

“Mediocre poetry – of which there is and always will be plenty – merely bores or irritates, but truly bad poetry, or Good Bad Poetry, goes beyond the insipid or the dull and manages to delight us by attaining new depths of dreadfulness.” (p. ii)

Oy vey. I’m not even Jewish and all I could say was “Oy vey, what where they thinking?” This is a collection of Good Bad Poetry that will make you laugh, wince, roll your eyes, and shake your head in disbelief. What makes it even better (or even better at being worse) is that none of this was intended as doggerel. The poems in this anthology are all published works, some by famous poets, and all were intended as serious offerings to a Muse. Which of the Muses?, well take your pick: Polyhymnia was the muse of sacred poetry; Erato of lyric poetry, and Calliope epic poetry. There are pretensions to all of them in this book. “Whatever their subject, the poems in this anthology prove Oscar Wilde’s conviction that all bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.” (p. iii)

In addition to the poems themselves, the book has two other brilliant ideas: biographical introductions to the poets, and the funniest index you will ever read (e.g.: Woman, useful as protection against lions, 118) The book was first published in 1930, so the humorous introductions have a fairly modern feel, as in “John Armstrong, M.D., a Scottish physician, added...fresh uneasiness to his patients’ normal misgivings by indulging himself in poetry.” (p. 60)

Sometimes the title of the poem alone is enough to make you brace yourself for what is coming, such as Cornelius Whur’s “The Poet Questions the Ant”, or Elizabeth Oakes Smith’s “Insect Affection”.

Sometimes the rhymes are so strained you can almost see the sweat on the poet's brow as he or she grasps for something, anything, that will fit:

I always know what sort of weather
tWe are going to have,
For Cynthia never wore her feather
tWhen the weather would be bad.
But when the days were warm and bright
tCynthia wore a feather,
Sometimes black and sometimes white,
tThe colour doesn’t matter whatever.
- Anonymous:

Also by Anonymous:
tThere we leave her,
tThere we leave her,
Far from where her swarthy kindred roam,
tIn the Scarlet Fever
tScarlet Fever,
Scarlet Fever Convalescent Home.

Sometimes the metaphors are strained to the breaking point, as in the Earl of Lytton’s “Love and Sleep”: Her smile was silent as the smile on corpses three hours old.

Or The Duchess of Newcastle’s “The Body: A Fancy”:

The Nerves are France, and Italy, and Spain;
The Liver Britain, the Narrow Sea each Vein;
The Spleen is Aethiopia, wherein
Is bred a people of black and tawny skin;

Or the Duchess’s “A Posset for Nature’s Breakfast”:

Life scums the cream of Beauty with Time’s spoon,
And draws the claret-wine of Blushes soon;
Then boils it in a skillet clean of Youth,
And thicks it well with crumbled bread of Truth;

Sometimes the imagery is so bizarre it could have come from Monty Python. In John Grainger’s poem “Bryan and Pereene” a young man coming home on a ship is so excited to see his true love waiting for him that he can’t wait any longer and jumps overboard to swim to her as she wades in to meet him. Alas, however,

Then through the white surf did she haste
tTo clasp her lovely swain;
When, ah! A shark bit through his waist;
tHis heart’s blood dy’d the main.
He shrieked! His half sprung from the wave,
tStreaming with purple gore,
And soon it found a living grave,
tAnd, ah! Was seen no more

Even though poetry used to be a common vehicle for expressing feelings, ideas, and concerns, some topics just do not lend themselves to being expressed in rhyme, such as John Dyer’s “Pastoral”, concerning the treatment of diseases in sheep, or Williman Shenson’s “Home Industries First: The Song of Colin, a Discerning Shepherd, Lamenting the State of the Woolen Manufactory.”

There is also Cornelius Whur’s “The Unfortunate Gentleman”, who mistakenly picks the wrong mushrooms and poisons himself and his family:

But in a dark and trying hour
t(Man has his days of woe!),
He found in vegetable power
tA dreadful, deadly foe!

Or: T. Baker’s “The Death of Huskisson”, about a man run over by a train:

When, by a line-train, in its hasty flight,
Through striving to avoid it, Huskisson
By unforeseen mischance was over-run.
That stroke, alas! Was death in shortest time;
Thus fell the great financier in his prime!
This fatal chance not only caused delay,
But damped the joy that erst had crown’d the day.

Or: Eliza Cook’s encomium, “The Old Arm-Chair”

I love it, I love it; and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old Arm-chair?
I’ve treasured it long as sainted prize;
I’ve bedewed it with tears, and embalmed it with sighs.
‘Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart;
Not a tie will break, not a link will start.
Would ye learn the spell? -- a mother sat there;
And a sacred thing is that old Arm-chair.

There is even Samuel Carter’s “Paean” which is, well, a paean to urban sanitation systems:

The sewers gigantic, like multiplied veins,
Beneath the whole city their windings unfold,
Disgorging the source of plagues, scourges, and pains,
Which visit those cities to cleanliness cold.

Or, finally: Julia Moore’s “Little Libbie”:

While eating dinner, this dear little child
tWas choked on a piece of beef.
Doctors came, tried their skill awhile,
tBut none could give relief….

Some are such weird concepts that it’s hard to know what the poet was getting at, as in Robert Pollok’s “A Contretemps”, where an anatomist busy dissecting a corpse is surprised by the coming of the Last Judgment, with the body splayed open on his table coming to life and rising in glory.

Most of the poets in this collection are unknown today, but some of them are among the most famous of their times. There is an oft’ quoted line from Horace’s Ars Poetica (c. 18 B.C.) that is usually translated as “even Homer sometimes nods,” meaning that even the greatest poets are not great all the time and have their off moments. ‘Tis true, for in this collection you will find howlers by Goldsmith, Robert Burns, Wordsworth, Keats, Longfellow, Addison, Emerson, Tennyson, and Poe.

Even if poetry is not your thing, this is an inspired collection. If you ever thought that poets are just different from the rest of us, this book will not change your mind, but it will make you laugh out loud.

And finally, I will close with some more of the index entries:

- Astronomy, pursuit of, inconsistent with social obligations, 230
- Englishman, his heart a rich rough gem that leaps and strikes and glows and yearns, 200-1; sun never sets on his might, 201, thinks well of himself, ibid.
- Fire, wetness not an attribute of, 28
- Frenchmen, fraudful, mix sand with sugar, 90
- Gabriel, the Archangel, titivates himself, 25
- German place-names, the poet does his best with, 54
- Immortality, hope of, distinguishes man from silk-worm, 152
- Lamprey, osculatory feats of, 108
- Lays, female, tuneful but immoral, 103
- Liverpool, rapture experienced at, 196
- Mothers, brave men weep at mention of their, 232
- Oysters, when in season, 20; reason why they cannot be crossed in love, 108
- Sewage system, metropolitan, eulogised, 207
- Victoria, Queen, makes a dash for Frogmore, 17
- Warner, Mrs., goes house-hunting in heaven, 49
- Wives should wash occasionally, 63; a modicum of intelligence desirable in, 158; but not too much, 211

Have only read up to John Armstrong.

"The difference between good poetry and bad poetry is the difference between a high flying eagle and a stuffed owl". ---Robert Graves, attributed
"Ninety-nine percent of all poetry written in the English language is awful". So went the introduction to a textbook on poetry written by a British scholar I read the year before entering UCLA. "Bad poetry is easily recognizable. It is not memorable". Yes, but what makes a poem really bite it, stink to high heaven, give you rabies? Bad poets are a dime a dozen. Think of Edgar A. Guest, "It takes a heap o' living to make a house a home". Finding the truly worst is a task for a literary master. In this anthology Wyndham Lewis, novelist, painter and friend of Ezra Pound, set out to select those English language poems that make your stomach turn at first glance. Even great poets can compose excrement, hence it's no surprise that Coleridge, Tennyson and Whitman are found in these pages. But, when people noted for high accomplishments in other fields try their hands at poetry that's when the perverse pleasure of reading bad poesy really begins. Take, for example, Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles and an important scientist in his own right. Erasmus delighted in writing about nature, leaving us with the immortal "The Birth of KNO squared" and "so still the Tadpole cleaves the watery vale". Then there is Sir Ronald Ross, the Scottish physician and Noble Prize Winner in Medicine, who discovered that malaria is transmitted by the mosquito. Sir Ronald fancied himself a poet and wrote a poem thanking God for giving him the light to see that malaria is transmitted by the mosquito: "I find thy cunning seed/ O millionth murdering Death". You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll hurl at this poetic underworld.

There's some pretty funny stuff in here. First published in 1930, it takes aim at poets of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The editors (D.B. Wyndham Lewis and Charles Lee) restricted their selection to dead poets, understandably enough. This edition, reissued as part of the terrific New York Review Books Classics series, has an introduction by Billy Collins.

Apart from some of the most hilariously dreadful verse you're ever likely to encounter, the book has the following attractive features:

1. Seven satirical drawings (Mr Tennyson reading "in Memoriam" to his sovereign, Wordsworth at Cross Purposes in the Lake District, and so on)

2. Tongue-in-cheek, pull-no-punches, biographical sketches of the poets. (e.g., in the entry for Adam Lindsay Gordon, this sentence: "In 1870 he published Bush Ballads, and later in the year committed suicide").

3. Best subject index evah. Sample entries:
lamprey, osculatory feats of, 108;
Woman, useful protection against lions, 118;
Beethoven, shaky octave playing, 6.

Then there is the poetry. Though I haven't had a chance to take it all in, I am happy to report that the book meets the obvious minimum requirement for a collection like this - that old fraud Wordsworth is generously represented. He contributes not just the title poem, but other gems like these:

"That is a work of waste and ruin;
Consider, Charles, what you are doing"

"Spade! With which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands,"

"I had a son, who many a day
Sailed on the sea; but he is dead;
In Denmark he was cast away;
And I have travelled far as Hull to see
what clothes he might have left, or other property."

(The Sailor's Mother).

Plenty of stuff from the usual suspects - Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle; Julia Moore (the sweet singer of Michigan), Burns, Byron, Poe, Tennyson, .....

I think it can actually be said of this book - It's a laff riot!

It is interesting to read a collection of curated bad poetry. But it's still a book of bad poetry. Maybe a bit too long.

Picked this up when I was writing about Wordsworth's The Stuffed Owl for my friend's taxidermy magazine. I'm still offended on behalf of the poem, which I think is rather nice. Better to have named the books for the biting shark of Bryan and Pereene - one of a few laugh-out-loud moments. Recommended for the erudite bathroom!

This book is hilarious, though I could only stand to read a little bit of it at a time. Too much bad poetry at one time stops being funny and starts to feel oppressive. Nevertheless, now that I have finally read the whole thing, I'm convinced that this will become a much-loved book I will frequently dip into, reading favorite passages of incompetently executed verse. Several are already firm favorites, such as the serial metaphors of Margaret Cavendish, the obsessive and superfluous footnoting of Edward Edwin Foot, Robert Montgomery's didactic verse and Thomas Macaulay's exquisitely sarcastic rejoinders to it, and the vivid and virile imagery of Adam Lindsay Gordon. Take the following example of the latter's art:

Flash! flash! bang! bang! and we blazed away,
And the grey roof reddened and rang;
Flash! flash! and I felt his bullet flay
The tip of my ear. Flash! bang!
Bang! flash! and my pistol arm fell broke;
I struck with my left hand then --
Struck at a corpse through a cloud of smoke --
I had shot him dead in his den!
("Wolf and Hound" by Adam Lindsay Gordon)

Connoisseurs of WWI poetry will note the resemblance to the verse of Private S. Baldrick, chiefly to his magnum opus titled "The German Guns".

And this brilliant verse from Julia Moore:

Ah, from this Temperance army,
Your feet shall never stray,
Your mind will then be balmy
If you keep the shining way.
("The Temperance Army")

A strict adherence to the rhyme scheme suggests a different "b"-word for "balmy", and one that also has to do with the mind, which is doubtless why this poem so amused the (British) editors.

The one regrettable omission in this anthology is that it stops chronologically with Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and therefore the reader must look elsewhere for the great achievements in verse wrought by William McGonagall, who was born sixteen years later.

Fun