The Worst Poet in the English language

We stay in Scotland for today’s podcast. We are going to meet a man called William Topaz McGonagall. Most people agree that he was the worst poet ever in the English language.

He was born in 1825. His father was a cotton weaver, who had to move from town to town in Scotland to find work. Young William spent only 18 months at school before he too had to go and work in the mills and factories. He became a jute weaver in Dundee, a town on the east coast of Scotland. (Jute is a fibre which is used to make sacks. In the 19th century, Dundee was the centre of the jute industry in Britain). It was in 1877, when William was 52 years old, that he suddenly discovered that he was a poet. Not just a poet – a great poet – possibly the finest poet since Shakespeare.

Over the next 25 years, Willam McGonagall wrote a large number of poems. He wrote about the great public events of the day, like the attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria, and the funeral of the Emperor of Germany. He was particularly fond of disasters, like shipwrecks and railway accidents. He wrote about famous battles, and about people and places that he knew.

And his poetry was bad. It was so bad that it almost became good, if you see what I mean. It was like someone playing a musical instrument, loudly and confidently, but completely out of tune and without any sense of rhythm. It was like a newspaper report turned into poetry. Here are some examples.

In 1878, a railway bridge was built over the river Tay near Dundee. At the time, it was the longest bridge in the world. It was a triumph of British engineering, and the nation felt proud. Naturally, William McGonagall wrote a poem about it. It began:

Beautiful railway bridge over the silvery Tay!
With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array,
And your central girders, which seem to the eye
To be almost towering to the sky.

Less than two years later, the Tay bridge collapsed in a storm while a train was passing over it. Many people were killed. McGonagall wrote:

Beautiful railway bridge over the silvery Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879
Which will be remembered for a very long time.

A new Tay Bridge was completed in 1887, and of course William wrote a poem for the occasion. I think you can guess how it began.

Beautiful new railway bridge over the silvery Tay!
With your strong brick piers and buttresses in so grand array,
And your thirteen central girders, which seem to my eye,
Strong enough all windy storms to defy.

William McGonagall organised public events where he would read his poetry. They were very popular. People came to laugh at his poems, and throw rotten fruit and vegetables at him. (Obviously, in those days, there was not much to do in Dundee in the evenings). But McGonagall continued to believe that he had a special gift as a poet. His fame as a bad poet spread throughout Scotland, and then in the rest of Britain and in the British empire. But his poetry did not make him rich, and he died penniless in Edinburgh in 1902. He has never been forgotten however. His books of poetry have been reprinted regularly. Last week, a manuscript of some of his poems was sold at auction for thousands of pounds. People still read his poems today and smile.

Download MP3 (5:27min, 3MB)