Very Bad Poetry Read Online Free PDF Page B

potatoes to this estimable end. For twenty years he wrote furiously, sending his works to Buckingham Palace and getting time after time the royal equivalents of a rejection letter—curt acknowledgments from private secretaries. But the ever-optimistic Gwyer read these as recommendations. In 1875 he published a collection of his works:
Sketches of the Life of Joseph Gwyer (Potato Salesman) with His Poems (Commended by Royalty)
and included reprints of some of the letters he had received as well as some reviews he had collected—which were about as evasive as the royal letters; for instance, “Mr. Gwyer’s aspirationsare most praiseworthy.… we prefer to refrain from depreciating that which is so well intentioned,” read a review in
Lloyd’s Weekly.
    Always the salesman, Gwyer also presented readers of the book with a unique opportunity: people could purchase by mail a sack of his potatoes as well, not to mention a photograph of him and his horse. A review of the book in the
New York Tribune
was blunt: people who weren’t sure whether to opt for the poetry or the potatoes should choose the potatoes.
To Alfred Gwyer
    I wish you Alfred now a good night;
You gives your mother great delight;
Don’t you wake up and ask for baa,
Or you’ll offend your dad-dad-a.
    (Note: Alfred, when asking for bread, calls it baa; and water, waa.)
from
Ode on the Visit of the Shah of Persia
    Intoxicating draughts he never does drink
If this we copied should we not be better, think?
from
On the Death of the Duke of Clarence
    Albert Victor loved his mother,
Father, sisters and his brother,
Affection great marked here his stay,
Was kind disposed in every way.
from
On the Funeral of Dr. Livingston
    Heap on more grass was his request
As hapless now he laid to rest.

NANCY LUCE
(fl. 1860s)
    N ancy Luce lived on a farm in Martha’s Vineyard, was certainly fond of chickens, and published a book of verse and advice called
Poor Little Hearts.
    This selection was sent to us by the distinguished modern poet W. D. Snodgrass, who, with his wife, does a reading of bad verse called “The Murdered Muse.”
from
Poor Little Hearts
    Lines composed by Nancy Luce about poor little Ada Queetie,

   
and poor little Beauty Linna, both deceased. Poor little Ada

   
Queetie died February 25th, Thursday night, at 12 o’clock,

aged most 9 years. Poor little Beauty Linna died January 18th,

Tuesday night, most 2 o’clock, 1859, aged over 12 years. She

   lived 11 months lacking 7 days after poor sissy’s decease.
    Poor little Ada Queetie has departed this life,
Never to be here no more,
No more to love, no more to speak.
    ….
    Poor little Ada Queetie’s last sickness and death,
Destroyed my health at an unknown rate,
With my heart breaking and weeping,
I kept the fire going night after night, to keep poor little dear warm,
Poor little heart, she was sick one week
With froth in her throat,
Then 10 days and grew worse, with dropsy in her stomach,
I kept getting up nights to see how she was.
    ….
    She was coming 9 years of age, when she was taken away,
By all I found out, very certain true
Poor Sissy hatched her out her egg in Chilmark,
The reason she was taken away before poor Sissy,
Her constitution was as weak as weak could be.
    ….
    She would do 34 wonderful cunning things,
Poor Sissy would do 39,
They would do part of them without telling,
And do all the rest with telling.
    ….
    When she used to be in her little box to lay pretty egg,
She would peek up from under the chair.
    ….
    Her complaint that caused her death,
Was just such a complaint as poor Sissy had
Only poor Sissy’s complaint ended with dropsy in her stomach.

WILLIAM MCGONAGALL
(1830-1902)
    A s William McGonagall, self-described poet and tragedian, wrote in the opening to his
Poetic Gems,
“The most startling incident in my life was the time I discovered myself to be a poet.”
    Many people in his native Dundee, Scotland, apparently disagreed with his discovery. Once while he