I had absolutely no idea that so many novelists have tried their hand at poetry! Didn't think we'd come up with more than a dozen or so. Although--mean-spirited as this may sound, and with some stellar exceptions--the sheer numbers make me suspect that some of these poems might be, um, less than memorable. (On the other hand, how many of us poets have written memorable novels?) But just for fun, here's what I think is a perfectly terrible poem by Herman Melville:
Old Age in His Ailing
Old Age in his ailing
At youth will be railing
It scorns youth’s regaling
Pooh-pooh it does, silly dream;
But me, the fool, save
From waxing so grave
As, reduced to skimmed milk, to slander the cream.
If any others occur to you that seem equally lacking in merit, please post-- although we might want to stick to poems by DECEASED novelists, for obvious reasons.
Marilyn
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