How bad?
 

If you google www.winningwriters.com you will come across the Wergle Flomp Humorous poetry contest where there appear to be genuine dollars to be won (a $1,359 first prize) for NO entrance fee. Your intrepid reporter pressed on and discovered what you do. You enter the WORST poem you can possibly write (I think McGonagall here) and SIMULTANEOUSLY you enter it for one of those vanity poetry contests where every one is a winner. And if your poem is truly execrable and it wins acceptance on the Vanity website, then you sit back and rake in the dolars. Last year's grand Wergle Flomp was a chap who looks like Mel Gibson in what we English call a dinner suit (dinner jacket if we are posh) and what Americans call a tux. His winning anti-poem is a quite risible piece of Walt Whitman. Whitman himself would probably have won at a canter. Anyof you budding Ern Malleys want to have a bash?
I once wrote, in my callow youth,a poem of unredeemed awfulness that began. 'Wind your wildering hair with sorrow./Wind it with the night' and went downhill after that. I could resurrect it, though I've (mercifully) forgotten how it went. Joe Kennedy co-edited a fine Anthology of real gluggers from real poets called 'Pegasus Descending' from which I cull this Canadian morsel by James McIntyre.

We have seen thee, Queen of Cheese,
Lying quietly at your ease

Dammit, that's so bad it's GOOD!

Any Sphereans want to try to be Wergle Flomps? Alternatively do you know any bits of really BAD poetry (perhaps even written by your good selves in your younger days before you saw the light). Who wrote this?

Over his head were the maple buds,
And over the tree was the moon,
And over the moon were the starry studs
That drop from the angels' shoon.

Dammit,they don't MAKE poetry like that any more.

I think I'm worse when I'm trying to be better, but here's what I quickly came up with:


THANK YOU, I'LL STAND

It makes me groan to sit on stone.
  Unless there is a cushion
plumped up there upon the chair
  I will not put my toosh in.

I'm on my guard when seats are hard.
  I don't mean to sound whiney,
but I can't bear the sort of chair
  that hurts my tender hiney.

I don't know why, Roger, but your contribution brings to mind the verse of Samuel Butler (the Victorian one) in 'The Way of All Flesh'.

The pious dogs of Saint Bernard go
To pull the people out of the snow
And round their necks is the cordial gin
Tied with a little bit of bob-bin

Butler says 'I tried to mend the last line but I found that I couldn't'. I may have misquoted. This is from memory.

This is from my teen years. I wrote it as a theme for a party, for which I made dummies out of stuffed clothing, and seated them around the room. (Yeah, I was pretty weird.)

It was actually a longer poem, which started out: "The laughing clown went home that night/as many nights before..." There were about two or three more stanzas, mercifully I've forgotten them. It was called--guess what?--"The Sad Clown."

Here's the last stanza:

For life is but a masquerade;
we wear the masks and gowns.
Reality will always fade,
and people will be clowns.

As Rocky the Flying Squirrel might say: "Badenuv?"

[Edited in: I hasten to add, the dummies weren't the only guests at the party--there were real people too! I wasn't that weird!]

*********
Bob, you're just too good with the tush humor for "Thank you I'll stand" to be bad. Sorry just being honest.

I won't be able to find it, but I wrote a poem called "the Trouble with Truffles" about a girl and Fontina cheese. Not a single mention of truffles. I wish I still had it although there are plenty of other truly terrible poems I could share.

Nah -- you guys are all too good.
A really bad one would go something like,

"The sky was as blue as blue could be
the little birds sang in the willow tree
and butterflies flickered across the lawn
to celebrate a brand new dawn ..."

Now that has real downside potential ...

Or like this.

The blue lake was like a little ocean
white gulls cried in the sky
and no single wave was in motion
when you caught my eye.

But when I saw you standing there
I got butterflies in my tummy.
on end stood my every hair
Darling, I thought you were yummy.

And when I watched you walk away
I felt a lot like Dante
Who was dashed to hear Bernice say
"I can only be your pococurante."

That is true doggerel.

Perhaps it will be worse if I add a third stanza?

THANK YOU, I'LL STAND

It makes me groan to sit on stone.
  Unless there is a cushion
plumped up there upon the chair
  I will not put my toosh in.

I'm on my guard when seats are hard.
  I don't mean to sound whiney,
but I can't bear the sort of chair
  that hurts my tender hiney.

I will not hide my honest side
  to dally with my tact side,
and you will find I stand behind
  the interests of my backside.

No Roger, it's good. It's not bad. I have just been reading P G Wodehouse, something I do pretty often. The novel is 'Leave it to Psmith' and it contains a poet, well, actually two poets, but the one of which we speak is the real deal as ar as bad poets go. Actually Wodehouse vouchsafes us only one line but it's a real winner.

Across the pale parabola of joy

Well I meanter say!!!

No, Roger, this could win you a prize in a light verse contest.

It is not only not bad, it is good.

Just want to add, that I don't like people who are so good that they are good when they try to be bad.:p

Bob, sorry, butt I'm afraid your latest version doesn't come anywhere near scraping the bottom. Maybe if you'd started earlier you could have learned to write bad--but that's just hindsight. Tush, old man! Better make an end of it!

Yeah, Bob, you're too good -- give up.
Janice is my only really bad competition around here ...

Thank you, Wendy, I can be bad without half trying.

All right, guys, quit showing off. I'm convinced if I just keep adding stanzas, eventually the cumulative effect will be bad beyond your wildest expectations. So here's two more, to be added to the three I posted above:

Why should I care how fine the chair,
   how elegant or beauteous?
What good is that, if once I've sat,
   there's no rest for my gluteous?

When pillows soften chairs I often
   sit, but it's uncanny:
whenever there's no pillow there
   I stand up for my fanny.

There's only one solution, Bob.
Get a 24/7 desk job.
Not only will your gluteus
grow soft, but also maximus.

There's a wonderful episode of the Dick Van Dyke show where he (a TV comedy writer) gets invited to a literary party, and there's a pretentious poet there pedding his latest book, "Lavender Lollipops." I keep thinking if I ever publish another collection I'd like to use that title.

(That was relevant to this thread, but I forget why.)

If you're seriously looking for bad verse, rock lyrics are the only place to go. I present the immortal Champagne Supernova by Oasis:


How many special people change?
How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannonball
Where were you while we were getting high?
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the sky
Wake up the dawn and ask her why
A dreamer dreams, she never dies
Wipe that tear away now from your eye
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannonball
Where were you while we were getting high?
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova
'Cuz we don't believe
That they're gonna get away from the summer
But you and I will never die
The world's still spinning around we don't know why
Why-why-why-why-i-i
(guitar solo)
How many special people change?
How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannonball
Where were you while we were getting high?
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova
'Cuz we don't believe
That they're gonna get away from the summer
But you and I will never die
The world's still spinning around we don't know why
Why-why-why-why-i-i
(a really long guitar solo)
(background - sounds like a bunch of "No"'s)
(birds chirping)
(more guitar)
How many special people change?
How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?
We were getting high <-- 9 times, background "Oooh-oooh"
(Fades out 7th-9th times to just one "Oooh-oooh")
(Song gets really quiet, fades to a peaceful guitar solo.)

And while we're about it, does anyone know the lyric to 'A Whiter Shade of Pale'? Is it surreal? Or just crap?

In your quest for answers, John, try starting here:

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1131

Come on, you guys, let's have some more bad verse, or Wendy and I are going to declare ourselves winners by default. (Should that be "de faults in de verse dat was worse").

Marion gets a dishonorable mention for her apologetic retort to Bob.

What's our prize?

Lament

My heart is a lonely partygoer,
a blade of grass beneath a mower,
a summer breeze defiled by skunk
when sorrow throws me in a funk.

It used to pump my blood with glee
but now it's of no use to me
since every beat it sadly thumps
drives me further in the dumps.

Someday I hope my heart will wake
to see it's all a big mistake,
no need for cardiac arrest,
no need to even be depressed,

and then, I hope, my heart, grown hardy,
won't be lonesome at the party.
 
 

Advice to a Man Intent on Lamenting his Fate

Life has never been a joyous party
for me either. Not even when I was hearty
and hale. But my heart has worn wings
to try to see the good in things.

It's not always been easy though
I've never had much fame or dough
But a cheerful mood will get you far
and that thought has been my lodestar.

So my advice to you today
is to try it my way.

TGIF

My
Way
Is to fly
Away

In the sky-
Way.
But why
Weigh

What I
Say
On a sigh
Day,

A Me-Oh-My
Day
Like Fri-
Day?

snip-snip-snip

Bob, I didn't think you could control yourself, but yes, that is a bad poem.

Orwn, I am eternally grateful that you posted this poem here and not on Non-Met. :D:D:D

Thanks, Janice. But which one did you mean, TGIF or Lament? Or, dare I hope, both?

I really admire bad poets. They make it look so difficult.

Not to sound like a fuddy duddy, but I really hate the idea of putting any effort whatsoever into making a deliberately bad poem. I think there are enough bad poets out there to do it for us.

Fuddy duddies are nice people, Shaun, they keep the joint respectable.

Believe me, there is no work involved. I can do it in five minutes max.

Once I had a buddy
who tried to be a fuddy-duddy
he said my poem was cruddy
and I replied (my face a tad ruddy)
I can write much worse
verse.

1.5 minutes. Ha!

It goes quick when you don't have to bother with a rhyming dictionary or a thesaurus. Man, you don't even have to think! It is dangerous though. In my younger years I wrote greeting card verse. For money. They are no-brainers, but they really drag a girl down into the soiled and seedy parts of life.

Bob, I meant TGIF that was a baddie. But the other one, Lament, had some interesting qualities and solutions. A blade of grass beneath a mower was a memorable line, actually light verse caliber. S2 was pretty bad though, you can be proud of that one.

Bob -- you done real bad, and here, that's good!
But Janice is giving you a run for your money ...

I, however, feel (diabolically) inspired ...

"Suicide Sounds"

Trapped, in this dim orb of oscillating consciousness,
trying to lift the stillborn shards of our one-time love--
Party on.

Party on, they said --
You can hear,
through the dull drift of anemic orifice
Still.
Party on.

No -- no more.
No more of the drill,
the shrill
soft heart of paralysis.
No!!!!

But it will
end.

Oh I love, love, love stillborn shards and dim orb. And soft heart of paralysis. That does indeed lift this deceptively simple poem to new heights of badness.

This poem reminded me of the night my pet racoon died. I don't think I am saying too much if I say

Pure genius.

Wendy, it's hard to remember the last time I read such a bad poem (Gazebo has been down for over a week). Congratulations!

(Friends of Gazebo, I'm only kidding. Lighten up!)

The Heart Has Ears

My ears were burning.
Were you speaking of me?

But no, I came too close
to the candle. And now,

as the nurse applies ointment
to my singed lobes

in the free clinic, I know
that nothing is free

but a broken heart,
and yet we pay the highest price.

LOL.

"singed lobes": this may be the first time in human history anyone has ever juxtaposed those two words before! Who says there's nothing new under the sun?

[No, I'm not doing/have not done a search on that.]

Ear! Ear!
 

Roger and the Usual Suspects assured me that this is the most horrible poem I've ever posted:

Common Senses

I sing of your enticing ears,
still virgins to those sonneteers
idealizing lovers’ looks—
perfections only found in books.
But bordering your tempting face,
they’re beauties that my eyes embrace.
Though sometimes coy beneath your hair,
attuned to me, they’re boldly bare.
My song then swells with common sense:
its urge to merge becomes intense.
Flooded by sounds as I come near,
each open, ready, loving ear
embraces pulsing lines that mime
the ways two bodies sometimes rhyme.

I don't remember that one, but yes, it is bad. Probably your personal worst. But you have a long way to sink before you can join the ranks of the truly Bad, who can do things with poetry you can only dream about.

Hold the presses! I just read some of the past winning entries, and some of them are only fake bad, not actual bad. For example, this one (two sonnets to mayonnaise) really isn't bad at all:

http://www.winningwriters.com/contes...07_blevins.php

Bob said, " ... who can do things with poetry you can only dream about ..."

Wouldn't that be "... do things to poetry ..." ?

Now we're really getting bad!!! These poems approach the truly horrible!!
Should I deconstruct mine for y'?
(threat threat)

DEATH OF A PHILOSOPHICAL FROG

The day I sallied forth in glee
upon the maggot-crusted sea
I drank a cup of magic tea
and turned into a frog.

I swam with joy, but soon was sad
and dearly wishing that I had
thought to pack a lily pad
since I could find no log

or shore to rest on as I caught
my breath --and then I had this thought:
my froggy life had come to naught.
I'd die here like a dog

and vanquished on the sea serene
I'd learn what little froggies mean
inside of Being's vast machine:
we are, at best, a cog.

The moral's very clear, I think.
Though what you have may seem to stink,
don't try to change it with a drink
of magic tea or grog.

Sorry, Bob, you flunk.
Kerplunk.
Not even your former skunk
smell can rescue you, unc'.

**'''''''

Believe me, you will never win if you keep writing good stuff.
Wendy and I are still leading.

You don't seem to understand what makes a poem BAD.

Oft I think of fairyland
where you and me could rein,
as King and Queen of a merry band
no worries in our brain.

But since we are mere mortals, dear,
and subject to mortal strains
and daily stresses in our lives
may love provide the bane
to make our worries light
and soften our dour pain.

O take my hand and let us skip
warily through life's pitfalls,
a heavenly kiss is not amiss
or two or three withal.

Oft I think of fairyland
where you and me could rein,
as King and Queen of a merry band
no worries in our brain.

Janice, have you read some of the winning entries? For the most part, they show a fair amount of skill, and the bios of the winners show that they are "real" poets with prestigious literary publications.

Now, my frog poem may not be within the reach of a non-poet to write, since the meter and rhyme hang together, but you can't honestly tell me that it's "good" in the sense of anyone wanting to publish it outside the context of a bad poetry competition.

I'm sorry to be so defensive. I know it's good form to accept critiques and just say thank-you. But dammit, I know this is bad no matter what you say.