h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Paul,

Congratulations on the twaddle in 199. Truly excellent awful poetry. I thought your previous poem, on oranges, was excellent too - so I nearly gave you a Public Warning (with tongue in cheek)- because it was simply excellent, not excellently bad. I nearly gave you the warning for writing good poetry on the BP thread!

Cheers,

Jab

I'm probably not the best judge of bad poetry. My style is cleverly inept, which is probably a contradiction in terms.

And yet, I am clearly writing without having anything to say, when I write for that thread. No big themes. Elegantly-phrased cliches like "she loves me--she loves me not." I massacre the language in a futile effort to rhyme with "orange."

Maybe I need some guidelines. Take the medium of bad art, for instance: The gallery for the Museum of Bad Art is just a couple miles away. I thoroughly enjoy the paintings that are there. Incompetence can be absolutely hilarious.

Please don't expect me to write verse so incompetent that it's not interesting or fun.

Fair comment, Paul.

I do enjoy your work. And I thought your second orange poem was very good indeed, worthy of being anthologised somewhere (away from bad art!)

Jab

Ah! Now I understand. The first version was bad enough to make the cut.

(Wanders off, whistling a merry tune...)