…such bloody awful poetry

to quote the Smiths.

I say this because during the awful speeches delivered in monotones (I exempt the charismatic Students' Union president and Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss from this), I read a slim volume entitled Very Bad Poetry, which is a delight.

Just as the Dean concluded a long speech of which I couldn't hear a single distinct word, I reached the wonderful line

The Dean met his Death with the Ground

 (Samuel Bently, 'The River Dove: A Lyric Pastoral', 1760s?).

But that wasn't the best of the worst poetry. Try these:

From Colonel I. J. Brittain's 'The Tragedy of Ida Ball Warren and Samuel Christie':

A fisherman went up the stream,

     He thought he saw a root,

On closer investigation

     He saw it was a human foot.

And finally, an excerpt from Solyman Brown (dentist-poet)'s cautionary epic about tooth decay, 'The Dentologia - A Poem on the Diseases of Teeth':

Whene'er along the ivory disks, are seen,

The filthy footsteps of the dark gangrene;

When cries come, with stealthy pace to throw

Corrosive ink spots on those banks of snow–

Brook no delay, ye trembling, suffering fair,

But fly for refuge to the dentist's care.

There's a lot more in this vein, and I thoroughly recommend the book. I plan to use it in my classes this year, once I've worked out the DNA of bad poetry. So far, the worst stuff is guilty of being over-specific, or overly abstract, too fixated by the metrical rules, of believing that poetry consists of little more than rhyming, and of trying to stuff significance into insignificant events. The dentistry poem is a good example - it uses the language and syntax of romanticism for a deeply unromantic theme, leading to accidental and unintended bathos. It's comic for us - but wasn't for Mr. Brown.

Only one book in the post today - A collection of Caryl Churchill's wonderful plays, including Serious Money and Top Girls, which aren't just the best plays from the last 20/30 years, but amongst the best plays ever written. If you ever get the chance, go see them. Serious Money is about the financial sector in the 1980s - I saw the very appropriate revival in Birmingham last year, and the City collapsed (temporarily, unfortunately). It's very very rude, bitter, intelligent - and all done in rhyming couplets.

Just for Kate

As she's the only one as obsessed with politics as I am (though she gets a partner - that's not fair), another politics post. Everyone else can look away now.

Stop and Search has been banned by the European Court of Justice. Yet again, it took the EU to point out to this government and the police that stopping and searching people without reasonable grounds is oppressive. Under UK law, the cops can take you aside and go through your pockets without even having to suspect that you're up to anything.

In the 1970s, this behaviour was known as the 'suspicion of being black' law, as black youths were targeted out of all proportion. The laws were changed in the 1980s, then changed back in the 2000s under the Terrorism Act. Lo and behold, the cops started harassing ethnic minorities again. Then they turned their attention to anyone planning to hold a legal demonstration, and photographers - a very useful tool to prevent democracy.

The sole condition was that the search had to look for articles used in connection with terrorism – but this covered many things commonly carried by people in the street. Police did not even have to have grounds for suspecting such articles were present.

The judges said that, because of this, there was a "clear risk of arbitrariness in granting such broad discretion" to a police officer.

Their concerns were compounded by the fact that black and Asian people were four times more likely to be stopped under section 44 and there was a risk that the power could be misused against demonstrators.

"The absence of any obligation on the part of the officer to show a reasonable suspicion made it almost impossible to prove that the power had been improperly exercised," the judges said in describing the lack of judicial checks.

This lightens my mood even more. Poetry marking is going well (congratulations, students) and Alastair Campbell is coming out with some corking BS to the Iraq war inquiry.

Once again, 3 cheers for the European Union. Now we just need to make it socialist.

Rhyme crimes

I've just received The Stuffed Owl, a brilliant anthology of bad poetry by lots of proper poets - Wordsworth etc. I shall use it for teaching purposes.

As we're in the middle of a financial crisis, I thought I'd share with you Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton's 'Financial Note', which is a shockingly poor response to an earlier series of bank failures.

A fortnight ago, a report about town

Made me most apprehensive. Alas and alas!

I at once wrote and warned you. Well, now let that pass

A run on the bank about five days ago

Confirm'd my forebodings too terribly, though,

I drove down to the City at once: found the door

Of the bank closed: the Bank had stopp'd payment at four.

Warrant out for McNab; but McNab was abroad:

Gone - we cannot tell where. I endeavour'd to get

Information: have learn'd nothing certain as yet-

Not even the way that old Ridley was gone:

Or with those securities what he had done:

Or whether they had been already call'd out:

If they are not, their fate is, I fear, past a doubt.