Paul Neil Milne Johnstone (1952–2004) was a real poet who lived in Redbridge, Essex. Johnstone had attended Brentwood School with Douglas Adams. There Johnstone edited a broadsheet, "the Artsphere Magazine," that included mock reviews by Adams as well as Johnstone's own poetry.

His name was used by Adams as the author of the worst poetry in the universe in the original radio broadcast, and first edition of HGttG, though this was changed to Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings for all subsequent versions.

Johnstone went on to achieve moderate prominence in the poetry world as an editor and festival organiser, including the 1977 Cambridge Poetry Festival.

So here's a thread for bad poetry. Whether it's a lump of green putty in your armpit or dead swans in a stagnant pool rotting away, let your Muse take you someplace truly awful, repellent, rancid, festering, or even confectious. Or feel free to post quotes from the worst poetry you've encountered (with all due respect to copyright laws and the health and safety of SFN members and guests).

To get the ball rolling, here's the peerless Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings to provide a little inspiration. ( her poetry is still considered to be the worst in the Galaxy, closely followed by that of the Azgoths of Kria and the Vogons, in that order.)

The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool.

They lay. They rotted. They turned

Around occasionally.

Bits of flesh dropped off them from

Time to time...And sank into the pool's mire.

They also smelt a great deal.

I will also offer, from beyond the Hitchhiker universe, i.e. the so-called real world, a snippet of what is considered one of literature's worst poems, The Tay Bridge Disaster, by the infamous William McGonagall:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Tay_Bridge_Disaster

Oh! Ill-fated bridge of the silv'ry Tay,

I now must conclude my lay

By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,

That your central girders would not have given way,

At least many sensible men do say,

Had they been supported on each side with buttresses

At least many sensible men confesses,

For the stronger we our houses do build,

The less chance we have of being killed."

Now, have at it, gruntbugglies!

Edited July 12, 2025Jul 12 by TheVat
Typo

Spade! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands,
And shaped these pleasant walks by Emont's side,
Thou art a tool of honour in my hands;
I press thee, through the yielding soil, with pride.

[continues]

W. Wordsworth (yes, really).

There is also apparently a poem, which I cannot trace titled: “Lines Written to a Friend on the Death of His Brother, Caused by a Railway Train Running over Him Whilst He Was in a State of Inebriation” , by one James Henry Powell.

(There is or was an anthology of bad verse called "The Stuffed Owl", which we had in the family when I was growing up, bought and much chuckled over by my mother, who was an English teacher.)

This is from the actress, Kristin Stewart:

My Heart Is A Wiffle Ball/Freedom Pole, By Kristen Stewart

"I reared digital moonlight/

You read its clock, scrawled neon across that black/

Kismetly ... ubiquitously crest fallen/

Thrown down to strafe your foothills/

...I'll suck the bones pretty.

Your nature perforated the abrasive organ pumps/

Spray painted everything known to man/

Stream rushed through and all out into/

Something Whilst the crackling stare down sun snuck/

Through our windows boarded up/

He hit your flint face and it sparked.

And I bellowed and you parked/

We reached Marfa/

One honest day up on this freedom pole/

Devils not done digging/

He's speaking in tongues all along the pan handle/

And this pining erosion is getting dust in/

My eyes/

And I'm drunk on your morsels/

And so I look down the line/

Your every twitch hand drum salute/

Salutes mine."

Well.

"...your nature perforated the abrasive organ pumps.." seemed like a direct lift from a Vogon poet to me. It certainly called for inclusion in this thread.

The Independent

Twilight star writes 'worst poem of all time'

The Twilight actress demonstrated her brooding best for readers of Marie Claire magazine

And now this, tossed anonymously onto my porch this morning.

A Tibetan who lacked iodine,

Tried Himalayan pink salt, ground quite fine.

But those mountains in general,

Are lacking that mineral,

So cretins abound near the snow line.