Susano
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'World's Worst Poet' Wins Immortality
stelle Shirbon
LONDON (Reuters) - A Scottish poet so bad he was often asked to perform just so the audience could laugh at him will have his verse etched in stone in the city where he worked.
William Topaz McGonagall, who died in 1902, has gained posthumous recognition in the Scottish city of Dundee, which plans to mark the centenary of his death by engraving part of one his poems on a walkway by the river Tay.
"His poetry is so bad it's memorable," said Niall Scott, director of City of Discovery Campaign, the organization behind the plan.
"Dundee has recognized the need to honor McGonagall as somebody absolutely dedicated to the art of awful poetry."
The city specializes in unusual memorials, having last year unveiled two eight-foot bronze statues of comic-book characters Desperate Dan and Minnie the Minx.
But in McGonagall it has a unique product. He was a textile industry worker who began writing poetry at the age of 47 after a "muse" visited him in his Dundee apartment.
"All of a sudden my body got inflamed, and instantly I was seized with a strong desire to write poetry, so strong, in fact, that in imagination I thought I heard a voice crying in my ears write! write!" the poet recounted in his autobiography. For the following 25 years, McGonagall chronicled events from battles to the opening of hotels in dreadful verse.
"No one can surpass him for being the worst poet," said Mervyn Rolfe, chairman of City of Discovery Campaign and a member of the Dundee-based McGonagall Appreciation Society.
"He doesn't care how many words there are in the line as long as the last words rhyme, so the meter is appalling."
POET-BAITING
That was also the opinion of many of McGonagall's contemporaries, who responded to his efforts by inventing "poet-baiting" -- a form of public entertainment in which the poet performed while the audience jeered.
He was the victim of many hoaxes, including a letter from "King Theebaw of Burmah" granting him the title of Knight of the White Elephant, which he used for the rest of his life.
The highlight of his career came when he journeyed to Queen Victoria's residence at Balmoral Castle in northern Scotland, convinced that the monarch was about to knight him, only to be rebuffed at the gate and ordered never to return.
McGonagall also traveled to the United States, where he was unable to sell a single poem and had to appeal to a Dundee well-wisher to pay for his fare back to Scotland.
He died a pauper and was buried in an unnamed grave in his native city of Edinburgh, but obituaries did appear in several Scottish newspapers.
"Poor old McGonagall has gone the way of all flesh, and the world is certainly the poorer in some respects. Whatever might be thought of his 'poetry,' there never was any difference of opinion as to the amusement it afforded," wrote the People's Journal.
Affection for the self-styled tragedian of the Victorian age has grown since his demise, culminating in the plan to engrave the first two verses of "The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay" in the ground near the bridge as long overdue recognition.
A fine example of McGonagall's art, the poem begins:
"Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array
And your central girders, which seem to the eye
To be almost towering to the sky..."
stelle Shirbon
LONDON (Reuters) - A Scottish poet so bad he was often asked to perform just so the audience could laugh at him will have his verse etched in stone in the city where he worked.
William Topaz McGonagall, who died in 1902, has gained posthumous recognition in the Scottish city of Dundee, which plans to mark the centenary of his death by engraving part of one his poems on a walkway by the river Tay.
"His poetry is so bad it's memorable," said Niall Scott, director of City of Discovery Campaign, the organization behind the plan.
"Dundee has recognized the need to honor McGonagall as somebody absolutely dedicated to the art of awful poetry."
The city specializes in unusual memorials, having last year unveiled two eight-foot bronze statues of comic-book characters Desperate Dan and Minnie the Minx.
But in McGonagall it has a unique product. He was a textile industry worker who began writing poetry at the age of 47 after a "muse" visited him in his Dundee apartment.
"All of a sudden my body got inflamed, and instantly I was seized with a strong desire to write poetry, so strong, in fact, that in imagination I thought I heard a voice crying in my ears write! write!" the poet recounted in his autobiography. For the following 25 years, McGonagall chronicled events from battles to the opening of hotels in dreadful verse.
"No one can surpass him for being the worst poet," said Mervyn Rolfe, chairman of City of Discovery Campaign and a member of the Dundee-based McGonagall Appreciation Society.
"He doesn't care how many words there are in the line as long as the last words rhyme, so the meter is appalling."
POET-BAITING
That was also the opinion of many of McGonagall's contemporaries, who responded to his efforts by inventing "poet-baiting" -- a form of public entertainment in which the poet performed while the audience jeered.
He was the victim of many hoaxes, including a letter from "King Theebaw of Burmah" granting him the title of Knight of the White Elephant, which he used for the rest of his life.
The highlight of his career came when he journeyed to Queen Victoria's residence at Balmoral Castle in northern Scotland, convinced that the monarch was about to knight him, only to be rebuffed at the gate and ordered never to return.
McGonagall also traveled to the United States, where he was unable to sell a single poem and had to appeal to a Dundee well-wisher to pay for his fare back to Scotland.
He died a pauper and was buried in an unnamed grave in his native city of Edinburgh, but obituaries did appear in several Scottish newspapers.
"Poor old McGonagall has gone the way of all flesh, and the world is certainly the poorer in some respects. Whatever might be thought of his 'poetry,' there never was any difference of opinion as to the amusement it afforded," wrote the People's Journal.
Affection for the self-styled tragedian of the Victorian age has grown since his demise, culminating in the plan to engrave the first two verses of "The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay" in the ground near the bridge as long overdue recognition.
A fine example of McGonagall's art, the poem begins:
"Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array
And your central girders, which seem to the eye
To be almost towering to the sky..."
