At last Julia...

n about twenty four hours, the Bad Poets Society goes down for about the eight time since its inception back in 1996. Curiously I am not riddled with the usual anxieties...I've been up and down so much with this program down thru the years that I've become immune to its special brand of mishaugas.
One particular issue that crops up from year to year is who is gonna be the "anchor poet"?..that is a particular "known" bad poet whose works we can showcase three or four times in the course of a single program. We mostly do this to highlight the apex predator bad poets out there it also fills up four or so spots that would otherwise need to be taken research-heavy "new" bad poems. So it is an intellectual economy measure of a sort.
This year, I was SURE the anchor poet was gonna be a woman, the front runner being Julia Moore the infamous "sweet singer of Michigan" a profoundly inept and humorless poetess whose work compares with that of Scotland's William Topaz McGonagall on the poetical crapulence scale.
Alas, Julai didn't make the cut this year, she favors VERY LONG poems, almost too long for our purposes...but I'll keep digging for more of her work and keep proposing her for other shows, she'll make it someday. However to make the occasion I'd like to post some of her song lyrics her for the delectation of the hard core faithful:
Leave off the Agony in Style


Come all ye good people, listen to me, pray,
While I speak of fashion and style of today;
If you will notice, kind hearts it will beguile,
To keep in fashion and putting on style.
Chorus --
Leave off the agony, leave off style,
Unless you've got money by you all the while,
If you'll look about you you'll often have to smile,
To see so many people putting on style.
People in this country they think it is the best;
They work hard for money and lay it out in dress;
They think of the future with a pleasant smile,
And lay by no money while putting on style.
Chorus --
Some of the people will dress up so fine,
Will go out in company and have a pleasant time.
Will rob themselves of food, perhaps, all the while,
Sake of following fashions and putting on style.
Chorus --
I love to see the people dress neat and clean,
Likewise follow fashions, but not extremes;
Some friends will find it better in future awhile,
To lay by some money while putting on style.
Chorus --
Gentlemen on the jury decides the criminal's fate;
I pray you turn from wickedness before it is too late;
Sad, indeed, would be your friends to hear your name reviled,
Better be truly honest though putting on style.
Chorus --
Leave off the agony, leave off style,
Unless you've got money by you all the while.
If you look about you you'll often have to smile,
To see so many poor people putting on style.

Julia A Moore

You can see at once what makes Julia so special, she is sooo humorless so earnest so primitive in her rhyming scheme...any time a poet starts shaking his or her finger at hemlines and too ornate hats, you know you have a winner. Like McGonagall, Moore favored song lyrics with a particularly puritanical tone. As funny as these are to read it is almost impossible to imagine anyone singing such a joyless hectoring screed.

Meanwhile the balloon goes up on the Bad Poets Society tomorrow night please join us...

THE BAD POETS SOCIETY

Don’t Miss this Unique Festival of Inferior Rhymes!

Friday November 21st at 8pm
The Spiegel Auditorium
56 Brattle Street
Harvard Square
Cambridge Ma.
www.channel0.blogspot.com
Admission: $5 cheap!!!

November IS Bad Poetry Month!!