William McGonagall : Destroy & Destroy! Dud Or DUD.

I DO HENCE DECLARE CLASSIC!

I think that became the state motto of California.

William McGonagall is Dundee's best remembered nobody. He was a man without talent who thought he was a great poet and tragedian and only needed an opportunity to prove it. This made him the perfect target for practical jokers who abounded in his day. He was engaged to give entertainments in small halls just so his audience could make a goat of him. His teetotal drink was spiked with alcohol.

McGonagall had passed middle life before he got the idea he had been visited by the muse. He was born in Edinburgh in 1825 and grew up in Dundee, to which his father moved in search of work. William also laboured long hours in the weaving trade.

All his life he was the butt of cruel jokes, but his faith in himself could not be shaken.

His remains were dropped into a paupers' grave nearly a hundred years ago, but his memory holds up.

All his poems have been published and so are there to be judged: they have, if nothing else, the quality of inimitability.

Until earlier this year his name and portrait flourished over a public house in one of Dundee's main roads and a McGonagall Society endures.

He claims a place on library shelves because his indomitable spirit appealed to authors and essayists.
He made a number of courageous journeys, courageous in respect they were made by a person whose means were generally nil.
He went to Balmoral, 50 odd miles, on foot, in the hope of seeing Queen Victoria. He got no further than the gate and was told never to come back.

To London, then by sea, lured by forged invitations and, to cap it all, to New York, crossing the ocean in the steerage class and arriving with eight shillings.

The streets of New York were not paved with gold for him, and in no time he was appealing to a Dundee benefactor to get him back home.

He should be an indie rock icon!

McGonagall also considered himself an actor, although Mr Giles' Theatre, Dundee would only let him perform the title role in Macbeth if he paid for the privilege in advance. Their caution proved ill-founded, as the theatre was filled with friends and fellow workers, anxious to see what they correctly predicted to be an amusing disaster. Although the play ended with Macbeth's death at the hands of Macduff, McGonagall believed that the actor playing Macduff was trying to upstage him, and refused to die.

OH mighty City of New York! you are wonderful to behold,
Your buildings are magnificent, the truth be it told,
They were the only things that seemed to arrest my eye,
Because many of them are thirteen storeys high.

And as for Central Park, it is lovely to be seen
Especially in the summer season when its shrubberies and trees are green;
And the Burns' statue is there to be seen,
Surrounded by trees, on the beautiful sward so green;
Also, Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott,
Which by Englishmen and Scotsmen will ne'er be forgot.

There the people on the Sabbath-day in thousands resort,
All loud in conversation and searching for sport,
Some of them viewing the menagerie of wild beasts there,
And also beautiful black swans, I do declare.

And there's beautiful boats to be seen there,
And the joyous shouts of the children do rend the air,
While the boats sail along with them o'er Lohengrin Lake,
And the fare is five cents for children and adults ten is all they take.

And there's also summer-house shades and merry-go-rounds,
And with the merry laughter of the children the Park resounds
During the livelong Sabbath-day,
Enjoying the merry-go-round play.

Then there's the elevated railroads, about five storeys high,
Which the inhabitants can see and hear night and day passing by,
Oh! such a mass of people daily do throng,
No less than five hundred thousand daily pass along,
And all along the City you can get for five cents,
And, believe me, among the passengers there are few discontent.

And the top of the houses are all flat,
And in the warm weather the people gather to chat,
Besides on the house tops they dry their clothes,
And also many people all night on the house-tops repose.

And numerous ships and steamboats are there to be seen,
Sailing along the East River Water so green;
'Tis certainly a most beautiful sight
To see them sailing o'er the smooth water day and night.

And Brooklyn Bridge is a very great height,
And fills the stranger's heart with wonder at first sight,
But with all its loftiness, I venture to say,
For beauty it cannot surpass the new Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay.

And there's also ten thousand rumsellers there,
Oh! wonderful to think, I do declare
To accomodate the people of that city therein,
And to encourage them to commit all sorts of sin.

And on the Sabbath-day, ye will see many a man
Going for beer with a tin can,
And seems proud to be seen carrying home the beer
To treat his neighbours and family dear.

Then at night numbers of the people dance and sing,
Making the walls of their houses to ring
With their songs and dancing on Sabbath night,
Which I witnessed with disgust, and fled from the sight.

And with regard to New York and the sights I did see,
One street in Dundee is worth more to me,
And, believe me, the morning I sailed from New York
For Bonnie Dundee, my heart it felt as light as a cork.

Dark slept the street of St George on that Saturday night,
Except for the occasional inebriated young man looking for a fight,
When the Birthday Party arrived, with one intent,
To imbibe spirituous liquors until their knees were bent.

The moon, bare half-exposed, gazed on the ill-wrought scene,
Featuring several young people who in the morning would not remember where they had been.
And let the Muse of History inscribe this fact:
That Mr Vague was mumbling "Still D.R.E." until out he blacked.

Many mourners sent best wishes to the home of sadness the following day,
Although several dissenters suggested that Vague and his Wife were gay
And ought to stop complaining of the extent to which they were over hung:
On account of how they'd be back in The Piper the following day until "Last Orders" were rung.

Peace out, William Mc-Gonnie-Fucking-Gee in da House.

John Lennon died, John Lennon died, John Lennon died
John Lennon died, John Lennon died, John Lennon died

With a Smith & Wesson, 38
John Lennon's life was no longer a debate
He should have stayed at home
he should have never cared
And the man who took his life declared, he said:

"I Just Shot John Lennon!"
He said: "I Just Shot John Lennon!"
What a sad and sorry and sickening sight
It was a sad and sorry and sickening night

Oh a sad and sorry and sickening sight
It was a sad and sorry and sickening night

"I Just Shot John Lennon!"
He said, "I Just Shot John Lennon!"
What a sad and sorry and sickening sight
It was a sad and sorry and sickening night

Oh a sad and sorry and sickening sight
It was a sad and sorry and sickening night

(not you Chris)

(but to infer McGonagall is a satirist on the strength of his lines and then ignore his life, and the experience of those around him, is rather too deep at the well of Text Is All for me)

That article does leave it a bit open, but I think it makes a strong case. McGonagall doesn't read like Julia Moore or many of the other bad poets (see Nicolas Parson's "The Joy Of Bad Verse" for other amazing examples), he reads like what Ogden Nash would write if he was trying for "bad".

(I should check my copy of the Compleat McGonigall to see if they have evidence for when the poems were first read, but I wonder if he didn't write the "before" Tay Bridge poem after the bridge collapsed, realizing the comic/satiric possibility in presenting the "how awesome is the Tay Bridge" poem in a reading after it had fallen, and then having to present the follow-up poem.)

I'm not arguing against him being C, either way.

McG's poems are popular and memorable; if the article is right, then they are clever, satirical, humanist, and well-crafted. If that doesn't qualify as "good literature", I don't know what does; and McG managed to make something of a living on it.

(I think there are other spoofers who have taken their secrets to the grave, although none are coming immediately to mind. I'd have to do some research to remember. I mean, in a completely different category of spoof, there's Billy Tipton...)

Incidentally, I meant to mention: I used to live in the building where McGonagall died. Woo!

Holy shit!

Chris we'll have to agree to disagree I guess - I reread that article last night and it really seemed to be jumping through hoop after hoop to arrive at its conclusions: as though it began with the proposition "what if this guy was actually a genius masquerading as an incompetent" and then worked toward its arrived-upon conclusion. I gotta go with Occam's Razor here: the poetry is awful, McGonigal never wrote any poetry that wasn't awful, ergo he was a legitimately awful poet.

I'm an avid lurker here and I do my laundry in that building.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7402920.stm

revival for LJ

the display name that nobody had to make

Beautiful city of Glasgow, with your streets so neat and clean,
Your stately mansions, and beautiful green!
Likewise your beautiful bridges across the river Clyde,
And on your bonnie banks I would like to reside.

that is awesome and should be engraved on a plaque in glasgow somewhere

The Famous Tay Whale.

WITHOUT FAIL, MOTHERFUCKERS.