Category archives: Hot Doggerel
Hot Doggerel: An Address to Shakespeare
[Today's unlovely slice of hot doggerel is served up (stinking & steaming) by guest-poster, Tuppenceworth stalwart, and occasional fustar.info football correspondent - Fergal Crehan. Take 'er away, FC.]
It is generally the case in writing that if you don’t attempt anything too fancy, if you stick to the simple task of putting one word after another in some sort of coherent way, you can’t go far wrong. Paramount on one’s agenda must be getting the point across. Doing so with a minimum of fuss should be enough to make one’s prose, if not exactly good, then certainly not bad either. Bad writing, almost invariably, is writing that thinks it’s actually good. It reaches for the stars, and falls far, far short. How else to explain this, from The Sunday Independent‘s John Drennan:
“As O’Donoghue turned upon Labour matador Eamonn Gilmore — who had plunged the final piccolo between the shoulder blades of our hero…”
There are at least three things wrong with that sentence, but the main one is that a piccolo is a wind instrument. Our scribe probably thought he was doing something a bit classy, adding a touch of Hemmingway-esque Mediterraneana to the philistine pages of the Sindo. Thus does excess of ambition transcend the merely dull, and achieve the authentically bad.
Poetry is so much higher in the firmament than mere journalism, that it inevitably leads to poor writing. Most people just can’t write the stuff. Even good poets miss the mark occasionally. But bad poetry is still readily identifiable as poetry. One senses that the poet at least had an idea of what she was trying to do. Occasionally though, one comes across something so bad that one must wonder if the poet had access to actual poetry, or was merely working from memory of a poem glimpsed many years before, and dimly. Had he, in fact, never seen a poem at all? Was he relying on second hand accounts from those better-travelled than he?
William Topaz McGonagall is considered by many to be the worst poet ever. These pages have already paid tribute to him, and to his masterpiece, “The Tay Bridge Disaster”. Today, I prefer to look at one of his lesser known pieces, a tribute to his (long-lost) brother poet, Shakespeare.
Immortal! William Shakespeare, there’s none can you excel,
You have drawn out your characters remarkably well,
Which is delightful for to see enacted upon the stage
For instance, the love-sick Romeo, or Othello, in a rage;
His writings are a treasure, which the world cannot repay,
He was the greatest poet of the past or of the present day
Also the greatest dramatist, and is worthy of the name,
I’m afraid the world shall never look upon his like again.
His tragedy of Hamlet is moral and sublime,
And for purity of language, nothing can be more fine
For instance, to hear the fair Ophelia making her moan,
At her father’s grave, sad and alone….
In his beautiful play, “As You Like It,” one passage is very fine,
Just for instance in the forest of Arden, the language is sublime,
Where Orlando speaks of his Rosilind, most lovely and divine,
And no other poet I am sure has written anything more fine;
His language is spoken in the Church and by the Advocate at the bar,
Here and there and everywhere throughout the world afar;
His writings abound with gospel truths, moral and sublime,
And I’m sure in my opinion they are surpassing fine;
In his beautiful tragedy of Othello, one passage is very fine,
Just for instance where Cassio looses his lieutenancy
… By drinking too much wine;
And in grief he exclaims, “Oh! that men should put an
Enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains.”
In his great tragedy of Richard the III, one passage is very fine
Where the Duchess of York invokes the aid of the Divine
For to protect her innocent babes from the murderer’s uplifted hand,
And smite him powerless, and save her babes, I’m sure ’tis really grand.
Immortal! Bard of Avon, your writings are divine,
And will live in the memories of your admirers until the end of time;
Your plays are read in family circles with wonder and delight,
While seated around the fireside on a cold winter’s night.”
“An Address to Shakespeare” manages to suggest at the same time that the author is both familiar with Shakespeare and entirely ignorant of all literature. While he does show some passing acquaintance with certain moments in the Shakespearean oeuvre, he has little to say about any of them except to note that they are “particularly fine”. “Particularly” is an odd choice of word here, given that he is less interested in describing any such moments as in simply enumerating them. The poet having said nothing on what made them fine, we may guess that they have been chosen at random, and used as an occasion for the poem itself. Which would be fine had he used the occasion as a jumping-off point for something ambitious. But the poem is resolutely earth-bound, “I Love Shakespeare”, with McGonagall in the Stuart Maconie role, shunting snippet after snippet with a perfunctory remark.
It is this half-arsedness that is most striking, and ultimately most heroic about this poem. Nothing in there is outrageously bad on its own, apart perhaps from the deadening repetition of the word “fine”, but there’s not a single line that couldn’t quite easily be removed. To be fair, you couldn’t say that about “The Tay Bridge Disaster”. Often, even good writers will throw in a line for the sake of a rhyme. But in the “Address”, every line seems that way. Indeed, the entire poem is a piece of filler, written without any apparent zest, as if someone had given McGonagall 30 minutes to knock out something about Shakespeare and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Why did he choose that particular scene from Shakespeare? Why write that particular line? Why, in fact, write the poem at all? Some writers are doomed to be in thrall to a muse that cruelly ignores their love. Though talentless, they display at least an affinity for talent. They know the good stuff when they see it. In McGonagall we have a man who, though he devoted his life to poetry, had no understanding of it whatsoever. He wrote hundreds of poems, not one of which ever gave the merest suggestion that he was barking up the right tree, few hinting that any pleasure was taken in their composition. It was as if, having decided he was a poet, he applied himself to it as a job, trudging through his “duties” without relish, like a time-serving civil servant. You could never call him talented, and most days you’d be hard put to say what his function in the office was at all, but his attendance record was perfect.
Hot Doggerel: Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing over 7,000 Pounds
The interweb may often be an ugly, querulous and hate-filled place, but one of its undeniable beauties is this. No matter how outré or perverse your particular enthusiasms are, you’re always only a click or two away from (virtually) rubbing up against some other soul who shares them. Suddenly no-one’s a weirdo…because everyone is.
It was not ever thus. I mean, consider the middle years of the nineteenth century. Top hats. Monocles. Fusty old patriarchs spoiling everyone’s fun. And, worst of all, they didn’t even have dial-up. Most people were lucky to have wind-up.
And so it was that the likes of Scots-Canadian James McIntyre (sometime poet and furniture maker) exercised their enthusiasms alone. Ostracised from their fellows by what probably seemed to them (interweb-less as they were) uniquely peculiar passions. Few pieces of verse have captured the isolating nature of maverickness and eccentricity better than McIntyre’s deliciously mature and creamy “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing over 7,000 Pounds”.
We have seen thee, queen of cheese,
Lying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze,
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.All gaily dressed soon you’ll go
To the great Provincial Show,
To be admired by many a beau
In the city of Toronto.Cows numerous as a swarm of bees,
Or as the leaves upon the trees,
It did require to make thee please,
And stand unrivalled, queen of cheese.May you not receive a scar as
We have heard that Mr. Harris
Intends to send you off as far as
The great World’s show at Paris.Of the youth beware of these,
For some of them might rudely squeeze
And bite your cheek, then songs or glees
We could not sing, oh! queen of cheese.We’rt thou suspended from balloon,
You’d cast a shade even at noon,
Folks would think it was the moon
About to fall and crush them soon.
Ok. So the guy liked cheese. A lot. More than is (or, presumably, was) conventional. But so what? Is cheese less worthy a subject for rime than, say, love? Or death? Or heavenly cherubim flitting hither and yon ‘neath the arch of a beauteous rainbow?
This was, after all, no ordinary cheese. It was a four tonne behemoth deemed worthy of display (before an agog public) “at a Toronto exposition circa 1855″.
Anyway…the hour grows late-ish and I feel the muse swell within me. So before I slip into the sleeping bag of Morpheus I must away and pen some purple poesy on Yop, Monster Munch, Donkey Kong Jr, and all the other wonders that sometimes make life not totally suck.
Hot Doggerel: The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God
Like most (unintentionally) “bad art” (define those words how you will) – bad verse pulls its audience in at least two directions. With one tug it produces giddy thrills – leading readers down a colourful, rubbish-strewn path to hilarity. With another yank it breaks your bloody heart – as the poet’s wobbly (and painfully sincere) edifice of fragile beauty collapses under the strain of bathos, sentimentality, naïveté and sheer (tragic) incompetence.
As the dust clears, there (in his/her creation’s ruins) the poet lies. Naked and sobbing (and covered in piss…for some reason). An artless soul torn open & laid bare for a jeering world to see.
Yet, for all that, “bad verse” offers pleasures beyond the mere mocking guffaw. It can be vital and rousing. Refreshing and (over-used term this) life-affirming. Deliciously weird and delightfully demented. It can (like a gormless but flukeily effective lover) touch parts that “good” and worthy poetry often struggles to reach.
And so, when time permits – and the mood and muse take me (passionately) – “Hot Doggerel” will have a poke through the detritus of bad verse, schmaltzy pop-poesy, melodramatic and sensational balladry etc., etc. I don’t know what we’ll find exactly, but, y’know, it’s…um…all about the journey. Or something.
First up – a classic from the Boys Own/Ripping & Romantic Yarn/East as exotic “Other” school. J Milton Hayes‘ (hugely popular and much parodied) The Green Eye Of The Little Yellow God (of which, we’ve spoken before).
There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There’s a little marble cross below the town;
There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.He was known as “Mad Carew” by the subs at Khatmandu,
He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell;
But for all his foolish pranks, he was worshipped in the ranks,
And the Colonel’s daughter smiled on him as well.He had loved her all along, with a passion of the strong,
The fact that she loved him was plain to all.
She was nearly twenty-one and arrangements had begun
To celebrate her birthday with a ball.He wrote to ask what present she would like from Mad Carew;
They met next day as he dismissed a squad;
And jestingly she told him then that nothing else would do
But the green eye of the little Yellow God.On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance,
And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars:
But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,
Then went out into the night beneath the stars.He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,
And a gash across his temple dripping red;
He was patched up right away, and he slept through all the day,
And the Colonel’s daughter watched beside his bed.He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;
She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;
He bade her search the pocket saying “That’s from Mad Carew,”
And she found the little green eye of the god.She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do,
Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;
But she wouldn’t take the stone and Mad Carew was left alone
With the jewel that he’d chanced his life to get.When the ball was at its height, on that still and tropic night,
She thought of him and hurried to his room;
As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy air
Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro’ the gloom.His door was open wide, with silver moonlight shining through;
The place was wet and slipp’ry where she trod;
An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew,
‘Twas the “Vengeance of the Little Yellow God.”There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There’s a little marble cross below the town;
There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.
Right. So on the face of it, this appears little more than a vivid and effective bit of catchy, derring-do melodrama. Carew (the passionate and impulsive anti-hero) shows his wild and raging love for the Colonel’s daughter by risking all to bring her a rare (mystical) treasure. The resulting doom (and its attendant casual racism: bloody revenge by murderous and uncilivised natives) only adds spice to the lusty romance. Fan me down, Aunt Margaret. My cheeks grow flushed. The end.
All perfectly jolly and disposable, as (the admirably unpretentious) J Milton Hayes himself seems to admit:
I wrote The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God in five hours, but I had it all planned out. It isn’t poetry and it does not pretend to be, but it does what it sets out to do. It appeals to the imagination from the start: those colours, green and yellow, create an atmosphere. Then India, everyone has his own idea of India. Don’t tell the public too much. Strike chords. It is no use describing a house; the reader will fix the scene in some spot he knows himself. All you’ve got to say is ‘India’ and a man sees something. Then play on his susceptibilities.
But, in almost the same breath, JMH hints at more….
His name was Mad Carew. You’ve got the whole man there. The public will fill in the picture for you. And then the mystery. Leave enough unsaid to make paterfamilias pat himself on the back. ‘I’ve spotted it, he can’t fool me. I’m up to that dodge. I know where he went.’ No need to explain. Then that final ending where you began. It carries people back. You’ve got a compact whole. ‘A broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew’ They’ll weave a whole story round that woman’s life. Every man’s a novelist at heart. We all tell ourselves stories. That’s what you’ve got to play on.
Key sentence? “They’ll weave a whole story round that woman’s life”. Indeed they (or I) will. For really, when you sit in the corner for hours and hours and scratch your face and head and think about it all, the poem is (despite superficial appearances) really all about the Colonel’s daughter (oh…and a colonial stereotype of India, I suppose). Carew is simply a pot-boiled agent of thick-headed adventure (motivated by a bad case of the horn). Off he goes, like an eejit tornado. Wrecking himself. Sorely pissing off others.
The Colonel’s daughter is left to pick up the pieces, live with the guilt, and lovingly tend yer man’s grave. While he’s in a British Raj Valhalla doing, one supposes, similarly insane shit – for all eternity.
This quote says it all and says it well:
And jestingly she told him then that nothing else would do
But the green eye of the little Yellow God.
Jestingly, she told him. Jestingly. She was joking you stupid idol-raping fool! Playing (with a nod & a wink: both ignored) the part of a spoiled and pouty debutante. Flirting with him. Taking the piss out of grand gestures. Mad Thick Carew – square-jawed literalist that he was – took the whole thing at face value. With predictably disastrous results.
Less, then, an unapologetically jingoistic and swoon-inducing romance. More a subtle and pointed satire/critique of traditional (block-headed) male “heroism”.
J Milton Hayes? Lost feminist icon? Maybe. Just maybe.
