Very Bad Poetry

by Ross Petras, Kathryn Petras

Writing very bad poetry requires talent. It helps to have a wooden ear for words, a penchant for sinking into a mire of sentimentality, and an enviable confidence that allows one to write despite absolutely appalling incompetence.

The 131 poems collected in this first-of-its-kind anthology are so glaringly awful that they embody a kind of genius. From Fred Emerson Brooks' "The Stuttering Lover" to Matthew Green's "The Spleen" to Georgia Bailey Parrington's misguided "An Elegy to a Dissected Puppy," they mangle meter, run rampant over rhyme, and bludgeon us into insensibility with their grandiosity, anticlimax, and malapropism.

Guaranteed to move even the most stoic reader to tears (of laughter), Very Bad Poetry is sure to become a favorite of the poetically inclined (and disinclined).

Genres: Poetry, Humor, Nonfiction, Canon

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 25, 1997

Reviews

[Roland · Rating 4 out of 5]

The greatest book of bad writing I've ever read...even better than Atlas Shrugged!

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to rate a book that's purposefully bad. I enjoyed the introductions to each author, and I appreciated the research that went into compiling these poetic fails. There were definitely funny poems, ones that made no sense, one that made me angry, and a couple that sounded just like every poem I read in high school! I read this straight through in order to accomplish a reading challenge, but I think I might have enjoyed it more if I read a section here or there as the mood hit. It's a lot of bad poetry to read in one sitting!

[SaraKat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had this on my shelf for a while now and finally got around to reading it. I am mad at myself for waiting so long! The poems are funny and so bad, but the authors' descriptions of the poets' backgrounds are hilarious. I found myself laughing out loud frequently during this book and heartily recommend it to anyone who needs some humor in their life.

The authors maintain that there is a lot of bad poetry out there, but it takes a special gift--an "inverse talent" to make Very Bad Poetry. They included stories about reception at the time of publication as well as reviews from other poets and critics. I found myself surprised at the subjects covered by these poems (the one about dental diseases comes to mind) and the dark turns that some of them took (a lover being bit in half by a shark.) These poets were uniformly convinced of their greatness and often twisted any criticism into something positive in their minds. I am in awe of some of their abilities to turn negatives into positives.

This poem struck a chord with me as I am not a fan of mornings myself:

Go away, Death!
You have come too soon.
To sunshine and song I but just awaken,
And the dew on my heart is undried and unshaken;
Come back at noon.

As did this one:

O that the lilies and roses were mine
Instead of the oak and ivy of life.

[C Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

life was a empty shell

till this book showed up at my store

life now is full of joy

worship great William McGonagall and James McIntyre

thank god
for bad poetry

blessed my life

hope it will do the same for you

yours truly
mac

[Edie Walls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains some of my all-time favorite bad poems. A fun, quick read!

[Aleksi]

Everybody has read conventionally bad poetry; many of us are guilty of writing it ourselves. In some rare instances, however, the awfulness reaches such levels that it becomes noteworthy not despite it, but because of it.

This amusing little volume is filled with examples of just how many ways there are for poetry to suck. From the nauseating baby-talk poems to uptight Victorian moralizing delivered in stilted rhymes, from banal attempts of decadence, grandiosity or wholehearted compassion to odes to such idiosyncratic poetic objects as cheeses, ditches and dental hygiene, each poem is a slightly different image in this kaleidoscope of atrocity.

Despite some hard challenge from artists like the potato-salesman-turned-poet Joseph Gwyer or the infuriating Julia A. Moore, my favourite still is the incomparable William McGonagall, whose terrible verse constantly makes all the right mistakes to stay unintentionally hilarious.

[sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I lu-love you very well,
Much mu-more than I can tell,
With a lu-lu-lu-lu-love I cannot utter;
I kn-know just what to say
But my tongue gets in the way,
And af-fe-fe-fe-fe-fection's bound to stutter!

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

honorable mention: “My Last Tooth” by Unknown, 1890. CACKLED.

i would argue that there is modern-day poetry as equally laughable as these ones (will not name names…). but hey, it’s subjective, and this poetry clearly meant enough to these poets that they chose to write poetry. who is to decide what is “good” and “bad” by literature’s standards anyway! everyone need a good laugh.

[Dan McCollum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my God, I adore this book! It's the kind of thing I will occassionally take off the shelf if I'm having a bad day, or will grab after a few beers to regale friends until we're all laughing so hard we cannot breath. Absolutely fantastic. If you ever wanted to read a collection of poetry which inclues an epic cycle about the building, burning down, and rebuilding of a bridge - this is it. If you ever had an itch to scratch about wanting to read poems about horrific tragedies that bungle the mood with a sing-song meter and overly technical jargon ("her blood on the floor was carmalized!") - here you go!

Seriously, this is great. If I still taught High School English, I could see myself reading some of these to the class for their enjoyment and to teach them what NOT to do :) Highly, highly recommended. I'm just shocked that no Vogon poetry made the list. Although there IS this one poem about a giant cheese ...

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pretty okay book about mostly pretty bad verse.

This was a fun read to sip at. The poems are pretty terrible, and it's fascinating to see how difficult it can be to exactly parse why? Beyond obviously inane and melodramatic themes, forced rhyme, and bad metre, there's a certain innefable quality that obviously marks bad verse? A lack of natural flow or absence of something sublime. The best writing in here was usually from the reviews at the time the poems were published — some of which are genuinely fantastically scathing. Overall though I think the spectacularly of the poor poetry was a bit underwhelming at times, but still quite interesting.

2.5 Poems about Train Accidents out of 5

🛤️🛤️1/2⬛⬛⬛

[Samuel Moynihan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible mix of camp, kitsch, and crass. The odes to cheese are less timely than the traditional 4th of July poems that read exactly like something a Facebook aunt would post in comic sans. I'm certain I was given one of these poems in a church lesson.

In this collection, the badness is mostly bent out of shape rhyme, stuffy moralism, and special interest poetry. Some of the work the editors detest seems mostly inoffensive to me. I'd like a modern reworking of this collection that makes room for cigarette boys, woke tumblr, and horny Instagram poems.

[Elevetha · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Ode to Very Bad Poetry

To talk like a baby, some thought quite keen
One thought a padded bra the worst crime he'd seen

Some get their kicks from gruesome dead death
While others think dentistry the best of the best

(No, Cheese, quite large, beats all the rest)

The themes, the meter, the rhymes all quite awful

Not to change subject, but who wants falafel?



Plop

[Danny Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suffers when it condenses poems to highlights. There is some rather bad poetry here, though. Plop.

[Steve Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

TRULY bad poetry. I knock off two stars as it becomes tedious after a point.

[Ronnie Tan]

really not so bad
i had a great time reading
learning and laughing

[Bryan J. Pitchford, MFA · Rating 2 out of 5]

As the title implies - terrible, horrible, no good, Very Bad Poetry! Do I give it five stars for living up to its title or one to two stars because... as the title implies...

[Emma McDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mean... they were bad but it was a good ha ha funny bad

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason this isn’t 5 stars is because sometimes the poetry was just too bad to put myself through.

[Victoria Meader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book! It was very fun. It's a nice book to keep on hand.

[Booknerder42 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read . The poetry wasn't bad but it was different... All I can say, deffinately worth reading.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This made me feel better about some of my own poetry. The editor's definition of bad is quite wide and doesn't relate to form alone. Yes there are those which don't scan or rhyme properly (all of mine that are meant to do that - at least when I recite them), and others which stretch the boundaries of the English language to make sure they do (guilty as charged); but there are plenty in there that, on the surface, do both.

There are surprisingly few - their top prize-winner one of the few exceptions - that don't even try. Does that mean it is harder to write bad free verse? Or just that it is a modern enough form for copyright holders to still exist and to have refused permission for inclusion?

Anyway, other characteristics that entitle a poem to a place in the collection include being morbid, bathetic (Bryan and Pereene: A West Indian Ballad made me laugh out loud), or on mundane or weird subjects right from the start. There are poems in here about dissected puppies, teeth, a brick and the potato - mind you, another poetry collection I'm reading at the moment (Matt Harvey's Where Earwigs Dare) also includes a couple of poems about potatoes, but he has the excuse of being commissioned to write them.

Another sin that made me smile were poems with copious footnotes, sometimes even in the text itself. I remember writing a Halloween poem when I was 10 where I felt the need to make up a word in order to get a rhyme (thus does one crime lead to another) and then had to explain the meaning beneath. In my defence, that poem embarrasses me still - even though the only place it exists is in my memory - and I have never committed footnotecrime since.

However, if you are not me reading this, you don't care about that and it only remains for me to say this is an enjoyable collection marred only by the - understandable - lack of recent examples. For that I would recommend the letters page of the Coventry Evening Telegraph.

[Adam Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection is in some ways more fun than the famous bad poetry collection The Stuffed Owl, because it is happy to reproduce bad poetry by bad poets, not just good poets on their off days.

Much of the poetry is genuinely bad and genuinely funny. There are famous bad poets like William McGonagall and other less well known anti-geniuses. Many of them are small-town Victorian Americans with a moralising purpose. Some just want to write about really big cheeses. Poor ol’ Grainger is in there, including the story of how the Johnson set took the piss out of him for writing poetry about how to grow sugar cane.

However, to keep the book brisk and fun, it rarely reprints the whole of the poems. This does keep things moving well, but feels a little cheap. I’m used to working a little for my pleasures, and would read a whole poem for the funny bits - it might be that I would have found the bits not included funnier. It’s a choice that increases the entertainment of the book but makes it a feel a little less legitimate.

It is a funny book though.

[Elaine Meszaros · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did so enjoy Here Speeching American that I grabbed another one of the Petras’ books. Through what must have been painfully arduous research, the duo managed to out together a collection of the worst poetry ever. No really, it is that bad. Godawful, in fact. Poems include:

The Dentologia- A Poem on the Diseases of the Teeth

Whene’er along the ivory disks, are seen.
The filthy footsteps of gangrene;
How Strange Are Dreams
How Strange are dreams! I dreamed the other night
A dream that made me tremble
Not with feat, but with a strange reality;
My supper, though late, consisted of no cheese.

Other fantastic poems include odes to: cheese, really really big cheese, carrion crows, a girl with one eye, the happy cripple, the potato, Kansas, earwigs, my last tooth and other horrors. The book culminates on the poem that Petras decide is truly the worst ever. You decide.

Vogons, eat your heart out.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only thing that I found out from this book is that I like some bad poetry. There was an ode to "A Holland Brick", but our family has a running joke about liking bricks. There were the poems about cheese, and our family likes cheese. Several of the poems, however, dealt with some macabre subject matter that got a giggle out of me in the light of "are they really going there?" I can see how several of these poems are bad if the poet was trying to do serious work, but if their goal was a tongue-in-cheek humor, they succeeded. I enjoyed the little biographies of the poets if they were known before their poems and the heads up on their poetry. Some qualities of bad poetry is the attempts of rhyming or use of inappropriate words just to make the rhyme or meter work. I recognize that I have done that before...but I am glad that I didn't find any of my bad poetry in this book.

[KA · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be wonderful in a poetry-writing class or workshop, since you feel challenged to pinpoint exactly what's wrong with the poems. Also a good book for a road-trip; when I moved from Beverly, I read these poems to my dad as he drove the U-Haul. They were much appreciated.

My favorite poems are "The Railway Bridge on the Silvery Tay," "The Tay Bridge Disaster," and "An Address to the New Tay Bridge," all by the same poet. Then there's "Ode to a Ditch," and "A Tragedy," which the editors call "The Worst Poem Ever Written in the English Language." That last begins:

Death!
Plop.
The barges down in the river flop.
Flop, plop
Above, beneath.

Great stuff!

[Christina (Boupie) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry

OMG, I had no idea poetry could be this bad! I was laughing most of the time but a few times the poems were so bad it actually hurt to read them (baby talk, really?) I think this may have been the funnest book of poetry I have ever read (I am not too big on it) and I am so glad I did. However, I seem to be writing horrible poetry myself now... that totally sucks, but it is funny and is making DH's day(that was almost a forced rhyme... I was going to change funny and day so they would sort of rhyme... this book does bad things to usually sensible people). Enjoy! ;)

[Tyrannosaurus regina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading a volume of Roger Ebert's reviews of movies he hated reminded me how much I enjoy this book, no matter how many times I read it. I mean, is it possible not to enjoy a book that brings into my life a masterpiece like "Ode on a Mammoth Cheese"? It never pokes fun at any amateur poets, or even living poets--only people who once got paid (or at least chosen) to publish the truly awe-inspiringly bad poems within.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant anthology, my only complaint--it was too short. I laughed so hard I think I busted my diaphragm. Although I have to say, the premise of this book is a little misleading. About half of the poems here are clearly intentionally "bad". Maybe the editors just don't get the idea of dark or macabre humor, or even satire? I don't know, but I personally think they're playing dumb to make the whole thing even more funny.

[SLT · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was mildly entertaining. I liked the idea of it more than the execution. I have read worse poetry. I was imagining it was going to be more contemporary; much of it was several hundred years old. Maybe the authors would collaborate with me on a modern adaptation. May highlight some favorites in a separate blog post.

[Allison Hawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book delivered as promised, the pages were filled to the brim with very bad poetry. With filler about fillings and odes to cheese, the book proves that not everyone can truly be a poet. My particular favorites were the poems that had footnotes that were longer than the poems themselves. Overall it was an enjoyable just-once read through.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was somehow hoping for more; it's a surprisingly sedate collection that is best described as "weird/eccentric/awful" rather than "very bad". Far more interesting and amusing were the witty, dry introductions to each poet. Certain sentences in particular are sardonic comedy gold, and much more amusing that the actual poems.