Bad poetry
Obviously, in this age of irony and guffawing, it's not surprising you can come across articles like this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A577118
'How to Write Bad Poetry'
The problem I have with this, and similar things, is that the examples are just not bad enough. They're obviously amusing piss-takes rather than bad poetry. They actually *work* in a silly Pam Ayers sort of way. What people don't seem to understand is that being half-arsed with the rhymes and rhythms is no more automatically bad than having perfect rhymes and rhythms is automatically good. Clerihews, for example, are ace, because they use forced rhyme and off-kilter rhythms to comic effect. That's not the same as being bad.
Proper bad poems have to reek of trying hard. The subject must be really deep, the poet out of their depth. No outrageous silliness, no wit, no let-on for even half a metaphor that the poet isn't taking themselves 100% seriously.
I think everyone should have a serious go at writing a truly bad poem. This is my effort:
Muslims hold up signs saying, "Kill! Behead!"
Why can't the signs say 'Peace' instead?
Danish newspapers mock Allah in cartoons.
Don't they realise that Muslims aren't all loons?
Whites abuse Arabs, and Arabs abuse whites,
Instead of talking they get into fights.
Children don't understand. "Why is daddy shouting?"
"Because he hates our neighbours," says Mother, crying.
His son goes up to him, takes him by the hand.
"Don't hate, daddy," he says. "We can share the land."
His father, ashamed, weeps and hugs his little boy.
The world begins to care. There is a chance of future joy.