The Disaster Poet

laphamsquarterly.org

16 points·benbreen··6 comments

The occasion for “The Tay Bridge Disaster” was also the occasion for a poem by Theodor Fontane (1819–1898), which, however, is held in high regard: “Die Brück’ am Tay”

German: https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Die_Br%C3%BCck%E2%80%99_am_Ta...

Link to “Norman Barry's English translation”: http://www.johnmaynard.net/RelPoems.html

A side-by-side presentation with another translation: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/die-br%C3%BCck-am-tay-when-we...

Thank goodness! I finally understand Douglas Adams' mention of "the second worst poet in the English language" in the Hitchhiker's series, which I first read (Restaurant, anyway) around age six or so. I finally get it!

Not so fast. While he probably did want you to think of McGonagall (who's infamous for his bad poetry), Adams wrote, "The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England in the destruction of the planet Earth." This was changed from Paul Neil Milne Johnstone of Redbridge, who complained about the use of his name and address. Paul Johnstone was a classmate of Adams and apparently did write poetry.

There's an H2G2 page: https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Paula_Nancy_Millstone_Je....

Paul Johnstone biography: https://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/163180

It's funny how many of these terrible poems sort of work if you imagine Ad-rock and MCA from the Beastie Boys rapping them back and forth.

Boyeee

More of this guy's poetry here: http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/works

Reply on news.ycombinator.com