Cumberland Clark—the “Bard of Bournemouth”—was, according to Anthony Daniels, the second-worst poet in the English language.* How bad was he? “Wonderfully, gloriously, hilariously awful.”
As evidence, Daniels points us to the beginning of Clark’s “The West Overcliff Drive”:
Do you know the West Overcliff Drive?
If you don’t, there’s no doubt that you ought to.
With interest always alive,
It’s a place everyone should be brought to.
Now, I’ve written some pretty bad poetry (who hasn’t, really?) but I don’t think it’s quite the steaming pile that that is. So let me help you get the terrible taste out of your mouth with a little something from Langston Hughes:
Advice
Folks, I’m telling you,
birthing is hard
and dying is mean—
so get yourself
a little loving
in between.
*The worst? William McGonagall, obviously.
