Product Description
William McGonagall, known as the Greatest Bad VerseWriter of his age, was unrecognised during his lifetime but now hasadmirers all over the world – including Billy Connolly, who haswritten an affectionate introduction to the anthology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Historically Interesting
My copy of the book had Billy Connelly on the front cover ... which is a shame , as a pic. of the bard himself would've been more appropriate . As to the poems ... well they are pretty awful ! Little wonder an inn-keeper threw peas at the man to rid him , lucky that turnips weren't on the menu . The poems do have an interesting look at life in the 1800's . This is real life , the everyday mishaps and disasters , the loves and losses , of the " ordinary " folk . And as such , some poems are deeply moving by their content . Worth reading ... but only once , in an average life-time !

Mickle rhymer
Great Bard of Tay! 'tis harder than it look
To pen the like of what is written in this book,
Which I venture to say without the least fear of rebuke
Will not for a very long time be overtook.

George Orwell identified good bad poetry such as Kipling's. McGonagall's is bad bad poetry - so bad it's good (and quite inimitable). There is a kind of anti-genius here. He could write vivid and engaging prose in naive style, but he resorted to prose only to introduce his volumes of verse. 'Poetic Gems' is the first of three volumes he produced in the 1870s and 80s, containing among other unprovoked assaults on Euterpe his famous paean 'The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay' and his even more famous lament when the bridge fell down shortly afterwards. Unkind readers have used the word disaster for both, and some have put two and two together.

One thing you can be sure of: he never consciously wrote an ironic line. With the right publicity, he could play big in Middle America.

Fellow-citizens of Dundee,
Isn't it really very nice
To think of James Scrymgeour trying
To rescue fallen creatures from the paths of vice?

Well, I don't know; but save one for me, Jimmy. ... Read more

Product Description
William McGonagall was born in Edinburgh in 1830. His father was a poor hand-loom weaver, and his work took his family to Glasgow, then to Dundee. William attended school for eighteen months before the age of seven, and received no further formal education. Later, as a mill worker, he used to read books in the evening, taking great interest in Shakespeare's plays. In 1877, McGonagall suddenly discovered himself 'to be a poet'. Since then, thousands of people the world over have enjoyed the verse of Scotland's alternative national poet. This volume brings together the three famous collections - "Poetic Gems", "More Poetic Gems" and "Last Poetic Gems", and includes all the valuable autobiographical material which appeared in the original volumes. It includes all his most famous works, as well as previously unpublished poems. ... Read more

Product Description
William McGonagall is a literary legend and one of the best known names in the printed world. His disjointed verse has been popularised by the Goons, Pythons and Muppets, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, JK Rowling, Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman. He is on film and in reference books. His portrait hangs in galleries. There are McGonagall societies and dinners, ceremonial plaques and websites.Yet we do not know where William McGonagall was born, where he was brought up or, indeed, where exactly he is buried. We do not know if the world's worst poet was Scots or Irish. No one has unpicked his first fifty years before he poured out formulaic rhymes on tragedies, victories, heroic deeds, nobility, clergy and gentry. We do not know how many poems he wrote or pamphlets of unappreciated verse he published.McGonagall has largely escaped the biographer's pen and no adequate appraisal of his life has been attempted - until now. This definitive biography of the world's worst poet is the remarkable, revealing and compelling story of a one-time Dundee weaver who continues to fascinate the world beyond Scotland a century after his passing.Award-winning author Norman Watson's insightful pen pulls back the curtain on the life of the self-styled 'tragedian and poet' in an important, absorbing and hugely entertaining biography which will appeal to McGonagall fans and general readers alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

McGonagall's Continuing Success Through Failure
In 1887, Lady Dalhousie died, and very shortly after, perhaps of heartbreak, her husband James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie, died as well.Perhaps no one would remember these sad departures except that they were commemorated in verse, a funeral poem which people have been reading ever since.It consists of fifteen quatrains, the first of which runs:

Alas! Lord and Lady Dalhousie are dead, and buried at last,
Which causes many people to feel a little downcast;
And both lie side by side in one grave,
But I hope God in His goodness their souls will save.

If you have ever read the poems of William McGonagall, you will easily spot the hallmarks of his authorship here; his style is, well, different from that of any other poet.McGonagall was not just a poet, but a stage performer, and he managed by means of his art (just barely) to make a living and bring himself a ration of fame.His poems have long outlived him, and are set to be enjoyed by every future generation.That is certainly more than most poets manage, but until now, McGonagall has not had a proper biography.But here it is: _Poet McGonagall: The Biography of William McGonagall_ (Birlinn) by Scottish journalist Dr. Norman Watson is the definitive account of the life of the poet as well as an appreciation of his work.Oh, McGonagall was a terrible poet, and the only reason to read his poems is to laugh at them, but he was a curious figure, and the paradoxes of fame and folly within his life are worth contemplating.

McGonagall spent most of his life in Dundee, a city that was not always happy to claim him.The performing arts were his way to leave the poverty of weaving behind (though it often seemed he swapped one source of poverty for another).He became an amateur actor.His workmates might attend his performances, and might show great enthusiasm for seeing their pal on stage, but according to one account, he was merely the target of jeers and catcalls, but "all this he bore with the most calm and stoical indifference."McGonagall's imperviousness to insult was to serve him well all his life.It is amazing that McGonagall was known for such performances for two decades before he ever started writing poetry.Starting in 1877, when he discovered himself to be a poet, McGonagall would write about the local scene, parades, parties, and banquets, but especially he would write about deaths and calamities; his "The Tay Bridge Disaster" is his most famous work.He had no capacity for poetic metaphor, he used images that clashed, he had a sparse vocabulary of words and tended to use the same phrases over and over, and he delights in the mawkish and moralistic.So his poems are hilarious, and Watson approves of them as so bad they are good.Watson also, however, tries to be generous in his appreciation of the poet for other traits.McGonagall was sincere and genuinely liked other people.He was genial in conversation.He really did know his Shakespeare.McGonagall's poetry reflects that he was passionately interested in the world around him, and he could write convincingly about lochs, the sea, and the countryside.Watson makes the case that the poems look lame and tame on the printed page compared to how they would have sounded if only we could have heard the poet himself on stage.Audiences at his performances were sometimes respectful, but more often boisterous.The crowd might, if the poet was lucky, cheer loudly during points of the recital, recite themselves loudly the refrains, and pass the hat generously for him at the end.At one particular farewell (but not for long) performance, "the audience rose to its feet and cheered to a man.Dozens rushed forward and nearly overturned the spent poet in their determination to honor him with a triumphal march home."It's nice that he got that now and then.What more likely happened was that he would come under a "withering fire of potatoes, apples, and rotten eggs," to say nothing of the flour bombs.When he performed at a Dundee circus under these conditions, he got fifteen shillings a night, but the city managers banned further such performances as being against good public order.He seems not to have minded being laughed at, or to have realized that the public appreciation of his sincere poetry was confined to belly laughs.It sounds a little like some sort of Andy Kaufman performance, and a case could be made that McGonagall was playing everyone _else_ for a fool.Unfortunately, the crueler folk of Dundee enjoyed playing practical jokes on him (beyond rotten eggs).When, for instance, King Thibaw Min of Burma knighted him as Sir Topaz, Knight of the White Elephant of Burma, it was an obvious hoax but McGonagall used the title thereafter.He also seemed to think that when a secretary informed him that Queen Victoria acknowledged his sending her his poems but could not officially accept them, that this was some sort of royal sanction.Or was he again putting us all on?

One way or other, the joke continues, with websites devoted to his poetry, and McGonagall appreciation clubs, and recordings of his work, and plays based upon his life, and on and on.Watson's guide to this extraordinary artist's life has many quotations from the poems, all of which remain weird and funny.And while it is rather sad to think of how McGonagall was treated by his "fellow citizens of Bonnie Dundee," and while he barely scraped by financially, this is a funny story, brightly told.Anyone who is amused by the poems will be amused by this entertaining biography.
... Read more

Product Description
Contains highlights from McGonagall's work, arranged by theme, and with an introduction and notes to set the poet and poems in their historical context. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Exquisite and delightful bad poetry!
This book is a true literary gem.William McGonagall, Scotland's legendary 19th C. bard, is widely recognized as the world's worst poet, ever.What makes his verse so marvellous is that the man truly believed inhis 'talent'.Trust me, you can't write poetry this bad on purpose.Hehas a strong bent to chronicalling tragedy and catastrophes.This book isfascinating and highly recommended to anyone interested in the craft ofwords, poetry and literature.And after you have absorbed the art ofMcGonagall, venture into "Very Bad Poetry" edited by Kathryn andRoss Petras.Authentic bad poetry is a whole new adventure in Englishverse. ... Read more

Product Description
The idiosyncratic Scottish poet William Topaz McGonagall has the unusual reputation as one of the worst poets in the English language with rhymes and rhythms that produce mirth rather than wonder. His masterpiece is "The Tay Bridge Disaster". Scottish-born Gregor Fisher, who starred in "Love Actually" and other film and TV programmes, reads the key poems and passages from the autobiography - and gets deep into character! ... Read more

Product Description
William McGonagall is famed throughout the far-flung reaches of the Empire for his exquisite verses and is a seasoned traveller - from Balmoral to El Alamein, from Istanbul to Lewisham. This is the sequel to "William McGonagall, The Truth at Last" and "William McGonagall Meets George Gershwin". ... Read more

Product Description
This is Spike Milligan's account of the man who was probably Scotland's most embarrassing denizen and the world's worst poet, William McGonagall. This follows on from the author's successful publication, "The Looney" (1987). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

an emphasis on the "miss"
I adore just about anything Spike, and really enjoyed the film he made playing this character - but man, this book is tough going. I found it a good cure for my insomnia, as I could never manage more than a few pages without falling asleep... it was almost impossible to drag my eyes across the page, and this is coming from someone who gets a kick out of Finnegans Wake, and when suitably drunk can do all the Goon Show voices.

Perhaps having a real editor would've helped string these ramblings together... a low point in the milligna body of work.

Hit & miss utterly unedited stream of consciousness goonery
Stream of consciousness goonery, utterly unedited, not even the vaguest attempt at a plot. In the introduction Milligan describes it as,
"... the first freeform comic fantasy in which the subconscious mind is the author."
 
He describes the process of writing, introducing his co-author as,
"...friend, pianist and fellow manic depressive. We decided that whenever either of us was on a down we would write `something' in book form. The result was this book."
 
As a result it's totally hit and miss - and the pleasure is also largely dependent on the mood of the reader: I found some parts hilarious and others merely confused, but I suspect if I read it again I'd have the same reactions to different parts of the text. Definitely only to be read, as it was written, in small portions (I don't think Spike would be at all offended to find I chose to read it in the smallest room in the house). ... Read more

Product Description
William Topaz McGonagall (1825-1902) was a Scottish weaver, actor and poet. He has been widely acclaimed as the worst poet in British history. The chief criticisms of his poetry are that he is deaf to poetic metaphor and unable to scan correctly. In the hands of lesser artists, this might simply generate dull, uninspiring verse. However, McGonagall's fame stems from the humourous effects these shortcomings generate. The inappropriate rhythms, weak vocabulary, and illadvised imagery combine to make his work amongst the most spontaneously amusing comic poetry in the English language. Of the 200 or so poems that he wrote, the most famous is probably The Tay Bridge Disaster, which recounts the events of the evening of 28 December 1879, when, during a severe gale, the Tay Rail Bridge near Dundee collapsed as a train was passing over it. He also campaigned vigorously against excessive drinking, appearing in pubs and bars to give edifying poems and speeches. These were very popular, the people of Dundee possibly recognising that McGonagall was "so giftedly bad he backed unwittingly into genius". ... Read more

Product Description
William McGonagall--ridiculed by his peers for his use of language--has become known as the "worst poet" of all time and "Scotland's other national bard." It is the mangled meter, limited vocabulary, clumsy rhythms, distractingly awful rhymes, lack of poetic metaphor, and extraordinarily inappropriate imagery of his poems that combine to delight and appal, and his indomitable spirit that made his legend grow. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

O sublime incompetence! Celestial idiocy!
As with the exquisite cinematic oeuvre of Edward D. Wood Jr., the poetic works of the Victorian Scottish poet William McGonagall rate one star for quality, five for entertainment value. McGonagall is a singularly sympathetic and touching figure: this brave, honest, God-fearing man suffered poverty, hardship and ridicule, sacrificing everything for his poetry, which was absolutely...abominable. A quotation from one of his poems--about the disastrous collapse of a railway bridge--will suffice to give the flavor of his work: Beautiful railway bridge over the silv'ry Tay!/I must now conclude my lay/By stating here fearlessly without the least dismay/That your girders would not have given way,/At least many sensible men do say,/If they had been reinforced with buttresses,/At least many sensible men confesses,/For the stronger we our houses do build,/The less chance we have of being killed. The pastor of McGonagall's church, reading McGonagall's tribute to him, said, "Shakespeare never wrote anything like this." Indeed not, and English poetry would be much the lesser if it had no room for gallant eccentrics like McGonagall. ... Read more