Doggerel

Doggerel is a derogatory term for poetry considered of little literary value. The word probably derives from dog, suggesting either ugliness, or unpalatability (as in food fit only for dogs). First attested in the 13th century.

Doggerel might have any or all of the following failings:

• trite, cliche, or overly sentimental content
• forced or imprecise rhymes
• faulty metre
• misordering of words to force correct metre

One example of doggerel might be:

Roses are red

violets are blue,

Icebergs are cool

And so are you.

Roses are red

Violets are blue,

I really like chocolate

And I like you too.

Almost by definition examples of doggerel are not preserved, since if they have any redeeming value they are not considered doggerel. Some poets, however, make a virtue of writing what appears to be doggerel but is actually clever and entertaining despite its apparent technical faults. Such authors include:

• Ogden Nash
• Pam Ayres
• Christina Rosetti

The American comedian Steve Allen took a similar approach: dressed in a tuxedo, he would solemnly recite inane popular song lyrics like:

Who put the bomp in the bomp-ba-bomp-ba-bomp?

Who put the ram in the ramma-lamma-ding-dong?

as if they were soliloquies from Keats or Shakespeare.

A well-traveled story has a writer (Dorothy Parker, William James, Ogden Nash or Gertrude Stein in various retellings) fall asleep, and in a dream they receive a profound insight, which the writer makes sure to record on paper before falling back to sleep. Come the morning, the literary celebrity discovers that the deep thought that came in a dream was:

Hogamus, higamus

Men are polygamous;

Higamus, hogamus

Women, monogamous.

(H. Allen Smith, in How To Write Without Knowing Nothing, attributes the verses to a Mrs. Amos Pinchot.)

The poetry of William Topaz McGonagall is also remembered with affection by many despite its seeming technical flaws.

Macaronic poetry may often be doggerel.

See also

• Nonsense poetry
• Hunting The Diamond Doggerel - From Worse to Verse

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