Many dictionaries seem to think doggerel means that the meter is clumsy or irregular, but I don't think that's how most of us use the term. We generally use it, I think, to mean verse that is very badly written. The flaws can be meter, rhythm, contorted syntax, unclever forced rhymes, or any combination of the foregoing. I agree with Catherine that doggerel can be intended to be serious, though I think to be doggerel and not just a bad poem the flaws have to produce at least an unintentional comedic effect, i.e., it needs to be so bad that it's almost comical.
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