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[Cthulhu]

I was originally gonna put this in Life Advice because I'm asking for help here, but that seems to be mostly advice in the Dear Bay12 My Life is a Fucking Mess vein, so we'll talk about bad poetry here in GD where it's popular.

I'm doing an assignment for class.  It's a long story, but in one part of it the narrator of this thing I'm doing presents a poem as bold, daring, refusing to bow to stodgy conventions, all that stuff.

Of course, the poem is terrible.  Jarring rhythm, no discernible meaning, violations of sensible sentence structure, all that stuff.  I'm having trouble actually writing something suitable though.  Might anyone have any suggestions or examples or something I could use?

Remember, this poem is supposed to have been written on a fictional island in the Indian ocean around 1500, so no anachronisms!

[FearfulJesuit]

I'd definitely recommend looking up the poetry of Amanda McKittrick Ros. Here is her poem The Old Home:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Don’t I see the old home over there at the base
Of a triangle not overcrowded with space:
‘Twas there I first breathed on the eighth of December,
In the year of Our Lord the month after November.

I’ve been told it was snowy and blowy and wild
When I entered the home as a newly-born child,
There wasn’t much fuss, nor was there much joy
For sorrow was poignant I wasn’t a boy.

I felt quite contented as years flitted on
That I to the coarser sex did not belong
Little dreaming that ever the time would arrive
That of female attire I would be deprived.

By a freak of the lustful that spreads like disease
Which demanded that females wear pants if you please,
But I stuck to the decentest style of attire
And to alter my “gender” I’ll never aspire.

During that hallowed century now dead and gone
In which good Queen Victoria claimed to be born
From childhood her modesty ever was seen
Her exalted position demanded when Queen.

She set an example of decency rare,
That no English Queen before her you’d compare
Neither nude knee nor ankle, nude bosom nor arm
Dare be seen in her presence this Queen to alarm.

She believed in her sex being loving and kind,
And modesty never to march out of line
By exposing those members unrest to achieve,
Which pointed to morals immorally grave.

But sad to relate when she bade “Adieu”
To earth and its vanities tainted with “rue,”
That centre of fashion, so French in its style,
Did its utmost to vilify decency’s smile

And mock at these garments which proved in their day,
At a glance-who was who-and wherein gender lay,
But alas! Since the death of our great and good Queen
That attribute “Modesty”‘s ne’er to be seen.

It wasn’t long after till modesty grew
A thing of the past for me and for you;
Last century’s fashions were blown quite aside,
The ill-advised folk of this age now deride.

The petticoat faded away as we do
In circumference it covered not one leg but two,
Its successor exposes the arms, breasts and necks,
Legs, knees and thighs and too often-the —.

And how could I possibly forget the opera of the Bard of Dundee, William McGonagall? His most famous poem is of course the Tay Bridge Disaster, but here I shall reproduce his elegy to the late, great Prime Minister Gladstone:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Alas! the people now do sigh and moan
For the loss of Wm. Ewart Gladstone,
Who was a very great politician and a moral man,
And to gainsay it there’s few people can.

’Twas in the year of 1898, and on the 19th of May,
When his soul took its flight for ever and aye,
And his body was interred in Westminster Abbey;
But I hope his soul has gone to that Heavenly shore,
Where all trials and troubles cease for evermore.

He was a man of great intellect and genius bright,
And ever faithful to his Queen by day and by night,
And always foremost in a political fight;
And for his services to mankind, God will him requite.

The funeral procession was affecting to see,
Thousands of people were assembled there, of every degree;
And it was almost eleven o’clock when the procession left Westminster Hall,
And the friends of the deceased were present- physicians and all.

A large force of police was also present there,
And in the faces of the spectators there was a pitiful air,
Yet they were orderly in every way,
And newspaper boys were selling publications without delay.

Present in the procession was Lord Playfair,
And Bailie Walcot was also there,
Also Mr Macpherson of Edinboro-
And all seemingly to be in profound sorrow.

The supporters of the coffin were the Earl Rosebery,
And the Right Honourable Earl of Kimberley,
And the Right Honourable Sir W. Vernon he was there,
And His Royal Highness the Duke of York, I do declare.

George Armitstead, Esq., was there also,
And Lord Rendal, with his heart full of woe;
And the Right Honourable Duke of Rutland,
And the Right Honourable Arthur J. Balfour, on the right hand;
Likewise the noble Marquis of Salisbury,
And His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, of high degree.

And immediately behind the coffin was Lord Pembroke,
The representative of Her Majesty, and the Duke of Norfolk,
Carrying aloft a beautiful short wand,
The insignia of his high, courtly office, which looked very grand.

And when the procession arrived at the grave, Mrs Gladstone was there,
And in her countenance was depicted a very grave air;
And the dear, good lady seemed to sigh and moan
For her departed, loving husband, Wm. Ewart Gladstone.

And on the opposite side of her stood Lord Pembroke,
And Lord Salisbury, who wore a skull cap and cloak;
Also the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Rutland,
And Mr Balfour and Lord Spencer, all looking very bland.

And the clergy were gathered about the head of the grave,
And the attention of the spectators the Dean did crave;
Then he said, “Man that is born of woman hath a short time to live,
But, Oh, Heavenly Father! do thou our sins forgive.”

Then Mrs Gladstone and her two sons knelt down by the grave,
Then the Dean did the Lord’s blessing crave,
While Mrs Gladstone and her some knelt,
While the spectators for them great pity felt.

The scene was very touching and profound,
To see all the mourners bending their heads to the ground,
And, after a minute’s most silent prayer,
The leave-taking at the grave was affecting, I do declare.

Then Mrs Gladstone called on little Dorothy Drew,
And immediately the little girl to her grandmamma flew,
And they both left the grave with their heads bowed down,
While tears from their relatives fell to the ground.

Immortal Wm. Ewart Gladstone! I must conclude my muse,
And to write in praise of thee my pen does not refuse-
To tell the world, fearlessly, without the least dismay,
You were the greatest politician in your day.

[Cthulhu]

While those are all impressively bad, I'm not sure they're quite what I'm looking for here, plus I don't know if I want to just straight up steal a poem.

This is the assignment I think I mentioned once, I'm writing a fictional letter to Thomas More by a guy who found his own island that's the exact opposite of Utopia.  One of the things the guy praises is that their art is unfettered by rules and conventions (because they're so free and individualistic) but since I'm not actually arguing that this alternate Utopia is actually a place you'd want to live, I want to make the poem subvert his argument with its badness.

So a really ridiculous purple poem is fun, but I'm looking more for something in the Tenderbuttonsphere but violently against any kind of prosody or rhythm.  Jarring, stilted, nonsensical, unreadable gibberish.

[FearfulJesuit]

While those are all impressively bad, I'm not sure they're quite what I'm looking for here, plus I don't know if I want to just straight up steal a poem.

This is the assignment I think I mentioned once, I'm writing a fictional letter to Thomas More by a guy who found his own island that's the exact opposite of Utopia.  One of the things the guy praises is that their art is unfettered by rules and conventions (because they're so free and individualistic) but since I'm not actually arguing that this alternate Utopia is actually a place you'd want to live, I want to make the poem subvert his argument with its badness.

So a really ridiculous purple poem is fun, but I'm looking more for something in the Tenderbuttonsphere but violently against any kind of prosody or rhythm.  Jarring, stilted, nonsensical, unreadable gibberish.

Yeah, Ros and McGonagall were both writing around the turn of the 20th century, when you at least had to pretend to respect rhyme and meter.

but these days

it seems that bad poets are content
to just put any old words down

and if they are divided into lines

its a poem

theres also a surfeit of fake poets

who think they are t s eliot and insert
pointless allusions and turns of phrase and

think they can get

away with it when in fact


they just look like pretentious morons

i know this because i too wrote

poems like this when i was fifteen
and consumed by

angst and used the poetic art

or lack thereof to express

my feelings of faux despair

[Owlbread]

McGonagall was atrocious. His poetry is almost as bad as the city of Dundee itself.

[scrdest]

While those are all impressively bad, I'm not sure they're quite what I'm looking for here, plus I don't know if I want to just straight up steal a poem.

This is the assignment I think I mentioned once, I'm writing a fictional letter to Thomas More by a guy who found his own island that's the exact opposite of Utopia.  One of the things the guy praises is that their art is unfettered by rules and conventions (because they're so free and individualistic) but since I'm not actually arguing that this alternate Utopia is actually a place you'd want to live, I want to make the poem subvert his argument with its badness.

So a really ridiculous purple poem is fun, but I'm looking more for something in the Tenderbuttonsphere but violently against any kind of prosody or rhythm.  Jarring, stilted, nonsensical, unreadable gibberish.

Random poem generator, set to 'Strange'

A sample:

Frozen Jello

A wet cave spews forth the abandonment of the ocean's dew drops.
A wanderer gets addicted to virgin rapture.
Shooo wee!
Eternity tastes like the bananas of my love's jello.

My sweetheart's spit!
Dang!
Alas!
The night bathes in donkey agony.

E: there's also this.

[Loam]

Just use the lyrics to a Captain Beefheart song.

[Owlbread]

Just use the lyrics to a Captain Beefheart song.

A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?

[Loud Whispers]

Just look at slam poetry. Also have your poet conform to self-constructed restraints in an attempt to break from restraints; i.e. the poet makes everything rhyme as much as possible to avoid blank verse and everything is in iambic golden ratio meter in a misguided attempt to achieve something bullshitty like "the mathematical perfection of poetry."

[smirk]

and everything is in iambic golden ratio meter in a misguided attempt to achieve something bullshitty like "the mathematical perfection of poetry."

Yes. Only the 'golden ratio' sounds too cool. Write a poem where the number of syllables in each line correspond to the Fibonacci Sequence 0_o

Woe
Woe
My heart
Aches to be
Out upon the sea
Of shattered hopes and fishes huge
That swarm and teem in teeming swarms that never shall hug
Though they strive together to create winds of change in the warm waters of the gulf-o
(etc)

[Loud Whispers]

and everything is in iambic golden ratio meter in a misguided attempt to achieve something bullshitty like "the mathematical perfection of poetry."

Yes. Only the 'golden ratio' sounds too cool. Write a poem where the number of syllables in each line correspond to the Fibonacci Sequence 0_o

"My poem follows the meter of that which is the perfect symmetry of the rotund ouroboros as ordained by Eratosthenes millennium ago..."

[GlyphGryph]

  throbbing cock
empty page
 throbing cock
   empty page
aempty page
forgotn     words
quivering throbbing 
 cock

[Graknorke]

  throbbing cock
empty page
 throbing cock
   empty page
aempty page
forgotn     words
quivering throbbing 
 cock

Is this meant to be describing a 90s porn site?

[Cthulhu]

Right now I'm trying to put together a random "meter" and then write based on that meter for maximum unnatural rhythm

[scrdest]

Right now I'm trying to put together a random "meter" and then write based on that meter for maximum unnatural rhythm

Find a noise generator, accent on every 1 bit.