It has been brought to my attention that a number of the blogs I've written here recently have included unkind comments about poems I don't like. To an extent, I stand by my mockery. Laughing at bad verse is one of the privileges of working in literary journalism. More importantly (particularly in the case of Wordsworth's Daffodils), it's a useful corrective to those intent on stuffing it down our throats.
Nonetheless, I concede that it's far easier to hate than it is to create. As one commenter slightly cruelly (but very accurately) pointed out, I couldn't do any better than the poets I've maligned. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't even dare to try. There's something about poetry that leaves the writer particularly naked. It's hard to say what exactly. Perhaps, it's the rawness of emotion that the medium encourages. Perhaps the fact that poems are so often self-conscious attempts to attain some elevated level of "high art". Perhaps it's the consciousness of all the sublime poetry that has gone before and to which the writer must inevitably compared. Maybe it's just that poetry is so hard to get right.
Whatever, the case, I would never want to expose myself to the well-deserved ridicule that the versified twistings of my inner-psyche would provoke. I'm also full of admiration for those that are brave enough - or bloody minded enough - to reveal their innermost poetic thoughts to the world.
And when it comes to facing the cruel judgment of the public, there are none more impressive than William McGonagall.
McGonagall was a poet of rare talent. So rare, in fact, that his talent never impinged on anything he wrote. Even in his own lifetime he was widely recognised as the world's worst poet, and the passage of years has only increased his stature. Works such as his famous lament on the Tay Bridge Railway disaster have never seen their equal, before or since. Behold:
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 shall be remembered for a very long time...
Meanwhile his commemoration of a failed assassination attempt on Queen Victoria is simply beyond comment:
God prosper long our noble Queen, And long may she reign! Maclean he tried to shoot her, But it was all in vain...
As Stephen Pile says in that Bible of the un-gifted, Book Of Heroic Failures, McGonagall was "so giftedly bad he backed unwittingly into genius." His poems may be awful, but they're unforgettably, delightfully so. Reading them is an unalloyed pleasure.
The only thing that sours this enjoyment is the slightly guilty feeling that comes from wondering how McGonagall must have felt to be laughed at. Was he aware when he was writing how the public would greet his words? Were the riotous reactions to the performances he gave around his home in Dundee a source of pain and sorrow to him? (McGonagall was eventually banned from reading in public, so excited did he make the crowds, and so often was he pelted with fruit and vegetables.) Or was he so thick-skinned that he was unaware of the derision?
Some have suggested that he was actually a clever satirist who realised that he could make a better living from opening himself to ridicule than in his former career as a weaver. I'm not so sure myself, but I do like to think that McGonagall was aware of how his poetry was received, but simply didn't care. He wrote for the sheer pleasure of creation and out of an altruistic desire to commemorate important events for his contemporaries, and nothing anyone said was going to prevent him. I even wonder if it's his enthusiasm for the job of writing as much as his inability that makes the end result so fun to read.
What's more, even though it might be sad that people read McGonagall to spot his endless infelicities, there's also the pleasant thought that by doing so they help immortalise him. After all, McGonagall's words live on when so many of his more gifted contemporaries have disappeared and will no doubt last longer than most of his mockers. Perhaps he's had the last laugh after all.
