This had better rhyme!

January 31, 2003 7:18 AM

I'm a Poet and I know it? Recognizing appalling verse as a humorous, sometimes oddly affecting balm. Rick from the Young Ones TV show made a huge impact on the field But tributes and poetry, of course, make for wonderful bedfellows. Just ask Ethan Hawke. Sometimes, though, one can try too hard to get the yucks. But perhaps nothing inspires inspired verse like our feline friends.
posted by chandy72 (27 comments total)

It's especially disturbing to find a poem like this, written by someone with the same name as you, even the same middle initial.

Someday, I'm not going to get hired for a job because a potential employer Googles my name and thinks I wrote that... or worse, this.
posted by staggernation at 7:29 AM on January 31, 2003

El presidente! The first link ain't working mate.
posted by Jimbob at 7:32 AM on January 31, 2003

Try taking off the period at the end.
posted by staggernation at 7:41 AM on January 31, 2003

Oh, like, wow, drag, man... I worked really really hard on that, too guys. Guys?
Try here or here.
posted by chandy72 at 7:41 AM on January 31, 2003

Sigh. Why is that the very worst writers never have any inkling of how incredibly untalented they are? I had a roommate who fancied herself a poet. What I can remember from one of her masterpieces:

A girl cries
Cause she's lost her guy
Why is there so much pain in the world?

She also thought of herself as a wonderful baker because she could whip up a nice mix cake in no time.

Staggernation, I cringe for you, man.
posted by orange swan at 7:47 AM on January 31, 2003

Oh, People's Poet. Don't die! We'll kill ourselves if you do!But first, we're going to take off all our clothes!
posted by witchstone at 8:03 AM on January 31, 2003

This is my favourite cat poem.
posted by transient at 8:14 AM on January 31, 2003

This is another fine example of the cat genre:

Arthur, you left us all too soon,
But for me it was eight years of joy.
You were not always appreciated during your short life, it's true.
(One person I won't name would have preferred a chocolate lab.)
But I understood your beauty, your magic, your sweetness.
I hope that Jesus is playing with you up in Heaven above,
Dangling your Cat Dancer toy that you loved so much.
(That is, until you put on all that weight a few years ago.)
It is tragic when a mother outlives her children,
But I will remember you always.
I used to say that when I got to Heaven,
The first person I wanted to see was my grandmother.
But I have to change that now, my sweet little Arthur.

Jean Teasdale

posted by orange swan at 8:23 AM on January 31, 2003

Bring on the Vogons!

Oh freddled gruntbuggly thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee...
posted by gottabefunky at 8:38 AM on January 31, 2003

I apologize in advance because I know she has her fans, but for my money Karen Mantler is the queen of bad cat related poetry/lyrics.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 8:42 AM on January 31, 2003

The master of appalingly-rhymed and -rhythmed poetry is, of course, Ogden Nash:

A panther is like a leopard
except it hasn't been peppered
should you behold a panther crouch
prepare to say ouch
better yet, if called by a panther
don't anther.

Bad poetry that's actually good.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 9:02 AM on January 31, 2003

cornflakes,
cornflakes,cornflakes,cornflakes,cornflakes,cornflakes,
cornflakes,cornflakes,cornflakes,cornflakes,cornflakes.
posted by sgt.serenity at 9:14 AM on January 31, 2003

More on bad poetry in general here and here, too.
posted by mattpfeff at 9:39 AM on January 31, 2003

Cats may inspire bad poetry, but so does the occasional Rottweiler.
posted by TedW at 10:01 AM on January 31, 2003

i can vouch for the truth in the ethan hawke haikus. scary.
posted by pxe2000 at 10:13 AM on January 31, 2003

Sarge: That's pathetic. It'll never win! But maybe you can match up the pictures of the famous noses with the pictures of famous bogies.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 10:38 AM on January 31, 2003

why wont it win ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 11:04 AM on January 31, 2003

(cannot resist)
It's only eleven words.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:09 AM on January 31, 2003

Bugger, we got it wrong.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:13 AM on January 31, 2003

'TERENCE, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.'

...A. E. Housman
posted by madamjujujive at 11:29 AM on January 31, 2003

I was re-introduced to the People's Poet recently, as my wife purchased me the Young Ones collector's set on DVD for Christmas.

For nearly 20 years, I've had "Pollution/Sometimes Up, Sometimes Down...But All Around/Pollution, are you coming to my town?" in my head. Thank god I can exorcise those demons.
posted by thanotopsis at 11:59 AM on January 31, 2003

For a small collection of bad poetry, see Seamus Cooney's page. Eliza Cook is often considered the worst poet in nineteenth-century Britain.
posted by thomas j wise at 12:56 PM on January 31, 2003

thanotopsis: My experience after watching the videos of the PP is that "Pollution" now has an even stronger grip on my already-too-crowded brain. That and the phrase "Dear Mr. Echo"

In fact, after posting this earlier, I had to turn to Edgar Lee Masters for the poetic sorbet so I could continue my day (hey, that rhymed!)
posted by chandy72 at 1:17 PM on January 31, 2003

The Master, William McGonagall:

...For the baby's flesh was partly uninjured by the flames,

Which shows that the loving mother had endured great pains;

It, however, met its death by suffocation,

And as the spectators gazed thereon, it filled their hearts with consternation...

(from "The Disastrous Fire At Scarborough")
posted by kablam at 5:12 PM on January 31, 2003

never mind stainless, at least we tried,
it is good to see the master above me here..

an ode to madame juju:

oh poster of willies most long,
hear as i sing you my song..


er..thats it so far..
posted by sgt.serenity at 5:34 PM on January 31, 2003

When midges whoop and holler over the lawn (Douglas Clark)

I'm wormy, dear God, and I'm ridden with fleas (anon., unsurprisingly)

Dear God indeed. These are sharing a webpage with Yeat's "The Cat and the Moon" and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.

A few years ago a friend wrote a poem and submitted it to a magazine contest as a joke. The poem was selected to be a little pamphlet called something like "Teen Angst" or "Young Pain," and contained the line--I kid you not--"Moo, moo, moo, CHOMP."
posted by hippugeek at 11:27 PM on January 31, 2003

shoot, I can't find it online, but there was a book published a while back full of memorial poems to Princess Diana. I've never read such a hilariously awful collection of doggerel.

All I could find was one poem fragment:
She produced two sons whom she loved without doubt
And gave freely to others her time and her love
But all she got in return was the shove.
posted by Vidiot at 6:31 AM on February 1, 2003