Very Bad Poetry Read Online Free PDF Page A

we 1 mourn for one now gone,
And he—that grey-hair’d Palmerston, 2
   We will give God the praise,—
   For he, beyond the age of man, 3
   Eleven years had over-ran
   Within two equal days.
    1. The nation.
    2. The Right Honourable Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, K.G., G.C.B., etc. (the then Premier of the British Government), died at “Brockett Hall,” Herts., at a quarter to eleven o’clock in the forenoon of Wednesday, 18 th October, 1865, aged eighty-one years (all but two days), having been born on the 20th October, 1784. The above lines were written on the occasion of his death.
    3. Scriptural limitation.
    The Worst Baby Talk Poem
    A particularly nauseating subset of very bad poetry centers on baby talk, and baby’s view of the world—“so-o big”—and baby—“so-o ’ittle.”
    This is the worst baby talk poem ever written—one that, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, might make you fwow up.
    The New Baby
by
Fred Emerson Brooks
    Tind friends, I pray extuse me
   From matin’ any speech,
Betause I is so ’ittle
   I ain’t dot much for each;
There ain’t much edutation
   In such a ’ittle head;
Besides, I is so s’eepy
   An’ wants to do to bed.…
She’s found anuzzer baby
   Dat’s noisier than I,
Betause it don’t do noffin’
   But stay in bed an’ cwy.
    ….
    She found it in the garret;
   I dess it’s dumb an’ deef;
It’s such a funny toler,
   An’ ain’t dot any teef;
An’ aint dot any eyebrows,
   An’ ain’t dot any hair;
In fact, it ain’t dot noffin,
   Nor any shoes to wear.

SAM WALTER FOSS
(1858-1911)
    s.w. Foss was a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and later editor of the Boston
Yankee Blade.
He submitted and sold many poems to Northeastern newspapers—mostly light, didactic verse in a get-up-and-go Babbitt style.
“Hullo!”
    W’en you see a man in woe,
Walk right up an’ say, “Hullo!”
Say “Hullo!” an’ “How d’ye do?”
“How’s the world a-usin’ you?”
Slap the fellow on his back;
Bring your han’ down with a whack!
Waltz right up, an’ don’t go slow;
Grin an’ shake an’ say “Hullo!”
    Is he clothed in rags? Oh, sho!
Walk right up an’ say, “Hullo!”
Rags is but a cotton roll
Jest for wrappin’ up a soul;
An’ a soul is worth a true
Hale an’ hearty “How d’ye do?”
Don’t wait for the crowd to go;
Walk right up an’ say “Hullo!”
    Wen big vessels meet, they say,
They saloot an’ sail away.
Jest the same are you an’ me—
Lonesome ships upon a sea;
Each one sailin’ his own jog
For a port beyond the fog.
Let yer speakin’ trumpet blow,
Lift yer horn an’ cry “Hullo!”
    Say “Hullo!” an’ “How d’ye do?”
Other folks are good as you.
Wen ye leave yer house of clay,
Wanderin’ in the Far-Away;
W’en you travel through the strange
Country t’other side the range;
Then the souls you’ve cheered will know
Who ye be, an’ say “Hullo!”

JAMES GRAINGER
(1721-1767)
    J ames Grainger called himself “a ruptured poet lost in holy trance.” The meaning of this expression is uncertain, but, then, Grainger had rather an unorthodox way of putting things. He is best known for his long, dense, information-rich poem about sugarcane, or, more specifically, how to grow the crop in the West Indies, a work titled simply “The Sugar Cane.”
    Upon hearing about Grainger’s intentions, Dr. Samuel Johnson had perhaps the logical reaction: “What could Grainger make of a sugar-cane? One might as well write “The Parsley Bed—A Poem,” or, “The Cabbage Garden—A Poem.” Happily for us, Grainger ignored the criticism and went ahead with his botanic masterpiece.
    Unfortunately, one of Grainger’s worst lines of poetry—and possibly one of the worst
ever
written—was cut from the poem. According to Boswell’s
Life of Johnson,
Grainger read the manuscript to a group of friends at the home of Sir Joshua Reynolds:
     … all the