William McGonagall

[Fnaar]

For anyone who is not familiar with Mr McGonagall's poetic oeuvre, some of his stuff is up for auction
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7402920.stm

For more info (he's described as world's worst poet) see wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGonagall

His best known work is "The Tay Bridge Disaster", and (not forgetting that it was a real disaster, of course) here's a sample of his work... it's in the "so bad it's good" area of things...

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem'd to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem'd to say-
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay."

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/poems/

 

[Melvil]

I once went to the launch of Stephen Fry's book about writing poetry 'The Ode less travelled' - he talked a bit about old Topaz, rather fondly I thought (considering how bad he was).