{"id":46961,"date":"2013-02-19T12:57:26","date_gmt":"2013-02-19T17:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=46961"},"modified":"2013-02-19T13:57:12","modified_gmt":"2013-02-19T18:57:12","slug":"the-worst-poet-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/19\/the-worst-poet-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Worst Poet in the World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/220px-William_McGonagall.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-46963\" alt=\"220px-William_McGonagall\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/220px-William_McGonagall.jpg\" width=\"220\" height=\"273\" \/><\/a>The handwritten manuscript of a poem by the man considered the worst poet in the English language,\u00a0William Topaz McGonagall, is expected to fetch up to \u00a33,000 at auction. While the doggerel-esque verse, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/books\/2013\/feb\/18\/rare-poem-worst-poet-auction\" target=\"_blank\">In Praise of the Royal Marriage<\/a>,\u201d is certainly no threat to Tennyson, it\u00a0 doesn\u2019t seem worthy of the dead-fish and rotten-egg tributes the Scottish bard\u2019s performances regularly elicited on the music hall stage. His most infamous work is probably \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CDIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mcgonagall-online.org.uk%2Fgems%2Fthe-tay-bridge-disaster&amp;ei=u6ojUe2oEMb00QHnooD4BQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHmvjczz_wEvIhNBhAwWWazDMJPqA&amp;bvm=bv.42553238,d.dmQ\" target=\"_blank\">The Tay Bridge Disaster<\/a>,\u201d commemorating an 1879 bridge collapse in which numerous train passengers were killed; it is either a masterpiece of outsider art or of insensitivity.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv\u2019ry Tay!<br \/>\nAlas! I am very sorry to say<br \/>\nThat ninety lives have been taken away<br \/>\nOn the last Sabbath day of 1879,<br \/>\nWhich will be remember\u2019d for a very long time.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The handwritten manuscript of a poem by the man considered the worst poet in the English language,\u00a0William Topaz McGonagall, is expected to fetch up to \u00a33,000 at auction. While the doggerel-esque verse, \u201cIn Praise of the Royal Marriage,\u201d is certainly no threat to Tennyson, it\u00a0 doesn\u2019t seem worthy of the dead-fish and rotten-egg tributes the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[1612,7577,10086,10085,165,3413,10087,10084],"class_list":["post-46961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-auction","tag-doggerel","tag-dundee","tag-outsider-artist","tag-poetry","tag-scotland","tag-tay-bridge","tag-william-topaz-mcgonagall"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Worst Poet in the World by Sadie Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"February 19, 2013 \u2013 The handwritten manuscript of a poem by the man considered the worst poet in the English language,\u00a0William Topaz McGonagall, is expected to fetch up to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/19\/the-worst-poet-in-the-world\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Worst Poet in the World by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"February 19, 2013 \u2013 The handwritten manuscript of a poem by the man considered the worst poet in the English language,\u00a0William Topaz McGonagall, is expected to fetch up to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/19\/the-worst-poet-in-the-world\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-02-19T17:57:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-02-19T18:57:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/220px-William_McGonagall.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"220\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"273\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/19\/the-worst-poet-in-the-world\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/19\/the-worst-poet-in-the-world\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"The Worst Poet in the World\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-02-19T17:57:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-02-19T18:57:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/19\/the-worst-poet-in-the-world\/\"},\"wordCount\":145,\"commentCount\":6,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/19\/the-worst-poet-in-the-world\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/220px-William_McGonagall.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"auction\",\"doggerel\",\"Dundee\",\"outsider artist\",\"poetry\",\"Scotland\",\"Tay Bridge\",\"William Topaz McGonagall\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Arts &amp; 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