Sam--

You might be interested in two anthologies of bad poetry that I know of (though they aren't deliberately bad).

One is "Very Bad Poetry", published 1997, by Kathyrn and Ross Petras (Vintage, 0-679-77622-2, $10.00). The major failing of this book is that it primarily consists of excerpts from bad poems, rather than the full-length bad poems. Still, there's lots of great terribleness to be found here: an ode to the "humble potato", a poem on dental diseases, an ode to a mammoth cheese, and so forth. Lots of fun.

Much better is one of my favorite books ever: "The Stuffed Owl", subtitled "An Anthology of Bad Verse", first published 1930, by D. B. Wyndham Lewis and Charles Lee (no ISBN or U.S. price to be found...it's an old British book). It's been out of print for a long time, but it is well worth a hunt. There's a long section on Julia Moore, whom Twain parodied in one of his books (Huckleberry Finn, I believe). There's Edward Edwin Foot, for whom the footnote may have been named, who actually used footnotes in his poems. There's the "hors d'oeuvres" section, which just presents single bad lines, such as "Poor South! Her books get fewer and fewer,/She was never much given to literature".

"The Stuffed Owl" also includes the best index in any book ever. A sampling (all of which refer to actual poems; none of this is made up):

"Carrot, sluggish, 22."
"Englishman, his heart a rich rough gem that leaps and strikes and glows and yearns, 200-1; sun never sets on his might, 201; thinks well of himself, ibid."
"Fire, wetness not an attribute of, 28."
"Smoke. See Incense of thanksgiving and Vapour, thundrous."
"Worm, lisping, 4; militant, 8; far-fetched, See Silk-worm."

How can you not love a book like that?

--Trip