Celebrate Bad Poetry Day Every August 18

• By NSC
• 1 Comment.

 

 

Are you a terrible poet? Then August 18 is your day to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and create some terrible poetry.

It’s Bad Poetry Day!

I know. Can you believe it? … There’s actually a day dedicated to bad verse.

But it makes sense, really. I personally know more bad poets than good ones.

(And I’m one of them).

So why shouldn’t we have a day in our honor? Or more accurately, in honor of the stinky poetry we compose.

Bad Poetry Day is yet another fun creation from the very fertile minds of Tom and Ruth Roy at Wellcat Holidays. They’ve created ‘round about 100 or so holidays, and many of them are just as goofy as this one.

Tom started creating holidays years ago and hasn’t stopped since. As far as we can tell, he tries to inject humor into everyday things. And he and his wife certainly have a unique take on life!

Scroll down for some ideas on celebrating this unofficial “literary” holiday.

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Ideas For Celebrating Bad Poetry Day

The Roy’s Bad Poetry Day page suggests writing some bad poetry and sending it to your old high school teacher (the one who made you study “good” poetry) as payback.

Even if you don’t want to go so far as to contact your old teacher, the day still begs for you to write some bad poetry.

At least share it with your friends.

Even better, have a bad poetry party. At the beginning of the party, give everyone pen and paper:

• Have a time limit for writing at least one bad poem.
• Maybe fuel the creativity with some beer, wine, or your drinks of choice.
• Once the time is up, it’s time to share your poetry with the group.
• Have a prize for the “best” bad poem. In this case “best” would actually mean the worst, the stinkiest, the one that makes your ears bleed hearing it. You get the idea!

 

If you need inspiration (or even reassurance that your poetry isn’t the worst the world has ever seen), read some famous bad poets:

• William Topaz McGonagall was, according to one critic, “… So giftedly bad that he backed unwittingly into genius.” This site is dedicated all to him and his horrible verse.
• Margaret Cavendish was the Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but that impressive title didn’t make her poetry any better. Some of her other writing, like her scientific books, were better.

 

Some other bad poetry we found around the web:

• The Bad Poetry Page from The Coffee Shop Times offers up some cringe-worthy verse.
• Bad Poems, collected by Alan Turner.

 

And here’s a short collection of The worst poems by great writers from The Telegraph.

There are even books of bad poetry … I’m not sure why you’d want to buy bad poetry, but we’re not here to judge. If that’s what floats your boat, check out one of these:

• The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse (New York Review Books)
• B Is for Bad Poetry
• Teen Angst: A Celebration of Really Bad Poetry

 

Care to share your bad poetry in honor of Bad Poetry Day?

 

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