MOD NOTE: This is one of 3 threads that led to the Poetry Contest. I'm moving it from the Administration to the Poetry Contest forum, to preserve the history of this Contest.

Here are the other 2 "historical threads": H/H poems and request to hold a Poetry Contest.

~gal-texter 6Feb2004

Hiya!

I sort of have this idea, and I'd like to know what everyone thinks. I've thought about making a contest here at Portkey with the purpose of promoting bad poetry. Now, the entries would have to be original, that is, written by the contestants. So what do you all think? Would anyone be interested in writing really awful poetry?

To give you an idea of what I'm thinking of, the one who's widely acclaimed as the worst ever (English-writing) poet is a guy called W.T. McGonagall. (This name is completely coincidental, by the way.) Try going to http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk and read some of his works. This should serve as an inspiration

So, if you want to be linguistically challenged with creating really bizarre and creative verses, this is the place! Please post if you think this is a good idea.

Ricelius

i was just wondering...if we could also hold a contest for GREAT poetry!!! a number of our fellow portkey-ers are gifted poets, and they have posted their h/hr-inspired works on the "h/h songs and poetry" thread in the "harry and hermione" forum.

i'm all for that bad poetry contest, ricelius, but did you have general poetry or hp-inspired poetry in mind? anyway, maybe we can have both contests! i mean, one for great poetry, and another for bad poetry! what do you guys think?

mrs. pepper

p.s. i was also wondering if that mcgonagall guy was writing bad poetry on purpose, or...

Great poetry is definitely and option as well, but I wouldn't want being primus motor behind that. At any rate, I wasn't thinking of any specific poetry style, but I guess it would be natural to make it HP-related. But really, I want to promote any kind of horrible poetry

As for dear ole McGonagall... I'm afraid he's dead serious about his writing, which is one of the things that makes it so funny. Which is probably a reason why constructed bad poetry would never be as good (er, bad) as unintentional bad poetry. If that makes sense.

Another source of bad poetry is Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Go here for more info...

i hope the mods or the administrators get to read this. or maybe we should pm them, so we can get this thing going...

mrs. pepper

Hmm, I dunno... One would expect the mods to scan the forums, right? But I guess we should first see if there's any interest at all (that was the hint to all the other PK'ers to post lots of responses to this).

I haven't gotten any poetry to use in the banners to promote the event. Is it ready for promotion yet ?

NAPPA