Bad Poetry: The Reverend John Brown Gordon Coogler

My blog has recently been described to me as being "about Springfield." I don't think that's a fair description; it's a blog about whatever pops into my head, triggered by whatever objects or events swim into my ken. Since I spend a lot of time on my block, those triggers might be a house or a tree in the neighborhood, but that doesn't mean my entry is "about" the tree. And I do occasionally leave the 'hood; I just got back from Jersey, for example, and I've been out of the country twice since I started this blog in January...both trips duly recorded here.

In the spirit of "show, don't tell," however, I'm going to print a poem about a whole 'nother state, from one of its most illustrious and prolific citizens. How bad was J. Gordon Coogler? So bad, he's got an annual award for terrible literature named after him. Here's a solemn verse about his home state (the "two elephants" are Winthrop and Clemson colleges):

Alas Carolina

Alas! Carolina! Carolina! Fair land of my birth,
Thy fame will be wafted from the mountain to the sea
As being the greatest educational centre on earth.
At the cost of men's blood thro' thy "one X" whiskey.

Two very large elephants thou hast lately installed,
Where thy sons and daughters are invited to come,
And learn to be physiclly fit and mentally strong,
By the solemn proceeds of thy "innocent rum."

Bonus verse:

A Pretty Girl

On her beautiful face there are smiles of grace
That linger in beauty serene
And there are no pimples, encircling her dimples,
As ever, as yet, I have seen.