Bad Poems

1>
Joel Chandler Harris
Remarked one day in Paris
(While dining on Br'er Terrapin),
"French cuisine is larrupin'!"

That's a kind of a poem that's called a Clerihew, because the first ones in this style were written by Edmund Clerihew, about Christopher Wren, who designed St. Paul's Cathedral ("...If anyone calls, /Tell them I'm building St. Paul's."), and this one, which was better:

Sir Humphrey Davy

Abominated gravy.

He lived on the odium

Of having discovered sodium.

2>
Mr. Edmund Clerihew
Was just a man like me and you;
The only difference, evidently:
Clerihew's surname was Bentley.

3>
Knocking on Emily Dickinson's door was never any use--
She'd whisper through the keyhole, "Pardon me, but I'm busy
being a recluse."
The importance of this occupation may be lost on
Anyone not born in Amherst which is much like Boston.

4>
Christina Georgina Rosetti
Went abroad, and discovered spaghetti;
She liked it well--she ate it raw
(She had a sturdy British jaw).

5>
The poet, William Butler Yeats,
Hated desserts containing dates;
Annoyed, he'd mumble to the chef,
"Don't we have any of that deep dish apple or
maybe some plum pudding or
baked Alaska lef'?"

#s 1-5 written by JRC ca. 1993