A review by lsoucy
The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse by Charles Lee, D.B. Wyndham Lewis

challenging funny lighthearted relaxing

How can something so wry be so hilarious? A work more of brilliant anthologising than of brilliant anthology; the biographical notes are often the best bits, and the book comes with what must be the most gutbusting index ever compiled (but how many have tried?). Despite the editors’ protestations that it is funnier to read bad poetry from great poets—“a fall off a cliff is more interesting than a fall off a cushion”—the most amusing portions are usually when they interpret this remit as broadly as possible, including poets of no renown and less talent. One notable exception is Wordsworth, however, whose excerpts are delightfully and uncharacteristically dreadful. All in all, the book has certainly grown quainter with age, but little less worthwhile or amusingly compiled.