"Genius Still Unrecognised" - The Worst Poet in the World

from Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford · host Pushkin Industries

William McGonagall's poems are something else. The jarring meter, the banal imagery, the awkward rhymes: they made him a laughing stock in 19th Century Scotland and are still derided to this day. How does someone get that bad at poetry? Or have we been misunderstanding McGonagall all along?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Aug 15, 2025

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"Genius Still Unrecognised" - The Worst Poet in the World

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