Comments on: McGonagalls All

By: Jeff Charis-Carlson

Jeff Charis-Carlson — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:31:33 +0000

This seems a very timely discussion of good bad poetry — especially given Mike Chasar’s recent article, “Writing Good Bad Poetry,” in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. Chasar himself seems to have something things to say about JH and FU at http://mikechasar.blogspot.com.

By: Oscar

Oscar — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:05:10 +0000

Great "conversation" you have going here, Javier. I think your friend is quite the sage, which is probably why I hear people calling for him all the time ("Hey, FU!") in the Town. Another height (depth?) of bad poetry to aspire to might be Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. I am sure Eliot is wondering why Andrew Lloyd Webber didn't set "Prufrock" to music. On the flip side, I don't think there is any work that has stooped so low and reached so high as Eve Merriam's Inner City Mother Goose. Almost forty years later and the poems are still just as relevant to today's urban realities, making it one bad book of poetry.

By: Friend Unnamed

Friend Unnamed — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 16:53:17 +0000

McGonagall was intentional because God intended him!

By: liz

liz — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 15:11:34 +0000

bad poetry, er, okay. there is plenty of intentional/non-intentional (whose intent, by the way — writer/reader?) in the slush piles of magazines. i think what you mean is that you’re bored by even the intentionally bad poems out there and that if you attempt to mimic them you’ll end up writing something pretty good by happy accident. if that’s not what you intend, then it seems like a, well, worthless, so to speak, project.

By: Chris Piuma

Chris Piuma — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:13:42 +0000

(McGonagall was intentional.)