There are two ways for a poet to achieve immortality: 1) Write at least one, but preferably several, indisputably great poems; or 2) Write at least one, but preferably several, indisputably atrocious poems. The latter might seem easier to do, but to write verse that isn’t just slight, mediocre, disposable, dull—to write truly awful poetry—requires a kind of “inverse talent,” as Kathryn and Ross Petras put it in the introduction to their anthology Very Bad Poetry::

It also helps to have a wooden ear for words, a penchant for sinking into a mire of sentimentality, a bullheaded inclination to stuff too many syllables or words into a line or a phrase, and an enviable confidence that allows one to write despite absolutely appalling incompetence.

Only three poets in the Petras anthology are allotted more poems than James McIntyre (1827-1906). Thus, although it remains true that Canada has not produced a Yeats, we can say without hyperbole that we have our very own McGonagall .

Great poets often have a theme, or obsession, that drives them to write. So it is with awful poets as well. For McIntyre, a furniture maker and undertaker in Oxford County, Ontario, that theme was dairy products, and “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese” is the Ingersoll Cheese Poet’s masterpiece (though it could be argued that “Prophecy of a Ten Ton Cheese” is superior—which is to say, inferior). The Petrases say rightly that, as is the case with great poetry, “we can’t exactly define a very bad poem except to say we know one when we see one.” Such is the case with this bathetic chef-d’oeuvre, but there are elements in it that deserve highlighting.

First, there is the rhyme scheme and the lengths to which McIntyre goes to sustain it. Terrible poetry is always unintentionally hilarious, and McIntyre’s dogged adherence to his metrically challenged AAAA quatrains provides the foundation of this poem’s par hasard comedy. It’s a pity there are no extant recordings of McIntyre reading his verses; I’d love to hear him emphasize the last syllable of ToronTO and I wonder if—I hope!— he’d try to slur the feminine rhymes of the fourth stanza to make “scar as” and “far as” sound like “Harris” and “Paris.”

The requirements of the rhyme scheme, combined with McIntyre’s monumental lack of skill, lead to weird non-sequiturs, badly tortured syntax and awkward turns of phrase, necessary elements of any terrible poem. Particularly outstanding are “Thy fair form no flies dare seize” and “Of the youth, beware of these,” the former adorned with the internal rhyme of “thy fair” and “flies dare,” the latter marred beyond mere badness by the redundant duplication of “of.” The refrain “queen of cheese” creates the formidable challenge of finding nine rhymes for “cheese.” This hurdle leads to some memorably bizarre metaphorical touches. My favourite is the comparison of the herd of cows to a swarm of bees or “leaves upon the trees”—not tree, mind you, it wouldn’t rhyme properly.

But the crowning glory of this fromagerie has to be its terminal stanza. This is pure anti-genius, the sort of thing you couldn’t think up yourself if you tried. Where on earth did the hypothetical image of this monstrous globe of ripened curd “suspended from balloon” come from? How did McIntyre dream this up? Did he see a hot air balloon whilst composing his poem and—eureka!—realize that it was just the thing he needed to wrap up his cheddarific ode? The muse only makes such visits to a peculiar kind of visionary in a fit of divine afflatus. The moon as cheese is not at all original, but the cheese as moon?! The deflation that follows could only be accomplished by a perfect poetic bumbler, with an unerring instinct for the wrong phrase at the wrong time. The idea of this lump of lunar lactose falling from the sky to crush the awestruck “folks” below is an incomparably brilliant anticlimax, enough to secure James McIntyre a permanent seat in the Valhalla of poetasters. Oh! McIntyre, King of Cheese!