A hilarious new collection of the worst poetry ever composed, by authors both eminent and obscure. Walt Whitman enigmatically wrote, "Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?" And Keats actually exclaimed, "I am wound up in deep astonishment!" Extracts both short and extended are by poets from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Included are an introduction, commentary on each poet, and a daffy index to the bizarre images that have been given to English literature (e.g., Axe, descending, causes condemned men to smile, p. 56; Toad, speckled, a load of spite and hate, p. 37). A worthy and unmissable sequel to the classic and oft-reprinted original, The Stuffed Owl (1930). Illustrated.