William McGonagall: How the World's Worst Poet Found an Audience

[00:00:00] Kyle Risi: Welcome to The Compendium: An Assembly of Fascinating Things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

[00:00:10] Adam Cox: We explore strange true stories from the worlds of true crime, dark history, scandals, mysteries, and remarkable people.

[00:00:17] Kyle Risi: I'm Kyle Reesey, the ringmaster for this week's episode.

[00:00:20] Adam Cox: And I'm Adam Cox, the professional lion walker. But then like a dog walker- ... but for lions.

[00:00:26] Kyle Risi: Have you ever tried walking James or Keith on a leash?

[00:00:29] Adam Cox: I mean, they're cats.

[00:00:30] Kyle Risi: And a lion is a cat.

[00:00:32] Adam Cox: Well, we can't just let them roaming the street because the last time we did that, they, attacked the neighbors and ate one of them.

[00:00:38] Kyle Risi: Okay.

[00:00:39] Adam Cox: So I'm there with, like a meat on like a- ... fishing rod-

[00:00:43] Kyle Risi: It's like- ...

[00:00:43] Adam Cox: and just, leading them round the block.

[00:00:45] Kyle Risi: So you're luring them for exercise. Yeah. Is that what your mother used to do? Didn't your mother used to, like, have a to-do list, and on the to-do list it was, exercise Adam?

[00:00:52] Adam Cox: Yes, that was one of her things on her to-do list.

[00:00:55] Kyle Risi: And did she have, like, an Oreo on a stick?

[00:00:56] Adam Cox: I don't know. To be honest, when I looked at it, like, when I was in my 20s, I found this old list which had that on.

[00:01:03] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:01:04] Adam Cox: It wasn't crossed off, so I don't think she got around to it.

[00:01:06] Kyle Risi: She was like, "I can't be fucked." I'm just gonna eat this Oreo myself. Guys, just a bit of housekeeping before we start.

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But if you choose to support the show with actual doubloons, you'll also unlock your bonus episodes, one a month, that you cannot get anywhere else.

[00:02:12] Adam Cox: Yeah, plus there's some, secret archive episodes- That's right ... in the vault.

[00:02:16] Kyle Risi: Do you know, can you just name one of the episodes that are in there?

[00:02:19] Adam Cox: No.

[00:02:21] Kyle Risi: Adam, that is enough of the housekeeping, because today on The Compendium, we are diving into an assembly of terrible verse, royal ambitions, and a man magnificently sure of himself.

[00:02:34] Adam Cox: Okay. So royal ambitions.

[00:02:36] Kyle Risi: Mm.

[00:02:37] Adam Cox: Part of the royal family, or whether it's the UK royal family.

[00:02:40] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:40] Adam Cox: And then what was the last bit you said?

[00:02:42] Kyle Risi: Magnificently sure of himself

[00:02:44] Adam Cox: Hmm. Yeah, sounds like royalty

[00:02:46] Kyle Risi: Adam, I've written you a little poem

[00:02:48] Adam Cox: Oh

[00:02:49] Kyle Risi: There once was a poet from Dundee who felt he deserved a place in literary history.

He believed every word that he wrote was divine, although he frequently struggled to fit an appropriate number of syllables into a line. Thank you

[00:03:04] Adam Cox: Did you come up with that or was this his?

[00:03:05] Kyle Risi: I, no, I wrote that Really? I just sat down and wrote it yesterday. It took me so long

[00:03:10] Adam Cox: You and, a little friend called Claude

[00:03:12] Kyle Risi: Claude is not great at writing poetry. Trust me, this is why it took me so long

[00:03:16] Adam Cox: Okay

[00:03:16] Kyle Risi: Adam, I know that was shit as a poem, but imagine if I'd read that to you in complete earnestness, completely convinced in my belief that what you have just heard was a piece of literary genius, then asked you very seriously if you knew anybody at Buckingham Palace who could help get my poem in front of the king

[00:03:37] Adam Cox: I mean, I'd be like, "What?"

[00:03:39] Kyle Risi: That poem? That? Adam, that is roughly the level of confidence that today's protagonist is dealing with because today on The Compendium, I'm gonna be telling you the story of William McGonagall, the world's worst poet. Oh. Have you heard of this story before?

[00:03:54] Adam Cox: No, but he's clearly living his French Vanilla fantasy

[00:03:58] Kyle Risi: What's that?

[00:03:58] Adam Cox: I just remember some drag queen said it once as if it's like that's her fantasy, like her world, she's amazing sort of thing, but everyone else are looking at her. Ah. She's not that great

[00:04:07] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. That, he, he's delusional basically

[00:04:10] Adam Cox: Hmm

[00:04:10] Kyle Risi: So William McGonagall didn't actually start out as the world's worst poet.

In fact, he wasn't even into poetry at all. He actually started his career as a humble Victorian weaver from Dundee who, in his 50s, Adam, became utterly convinced by a disembodied voice that he hears one night that his mission in life was to become a poet. Unfortunately, Adam, his poems are dreadful. He insisted every single line rhyme until for no reason he decided that they didn't need to in the same poem

[00:04:40] Adam Cox: So no structure

[00:04:42] Kyle Risi: No. There's just no, no, no... I don't know all the poetic kinda terms, like pedantic patameter meter thing where kinda like it's got a flow and-

[00:04:51] Adam Cox: Iambic pentameter

[00:04:52] Kyle Risi: That's it. Yeah, so it's written in the notes somewhere, and I'll get it right then, but-

[00:04:56] Adam Cox: Ba dum, ba dum, ba dum Ba dum, ba dum, ba dum That sounds like- Something-

[00:04:59] Kyle Risi: Are you-

[00:04:59] Adam Cox: I'm sure that's like iambic pentameter.

There's like a rhythm with it

[00:05:02] Kyle Risi: I just got Kylie Minogue vibes then

[00:05:04] Adam Cox: A pa-dam Maybe that's iambic pentameter

[00:05:09] Kyle Risi: But anyway

when his verses did rhyme, the rhymes were so painfully forced that when he couldn't find a word to rhyme with it, he would just force a line to run on until he eventually crashed into one that did.

Exactly what I did in this opening line, which is why this is a piece of literary genius, where I said literally,

although he frequently struggled to fit every appropriate number of syllables into a line." That's the type of thing that he would did. It was just like, "I need a, I need a rhyming word, but, one's not coming up," so he would just extend the sentence until he bashed into one.

[00:05:36] Adam Cox: Do you know what? I didn't hate it.

[00:05:37] Kyle Risi: My poem?

[00:05:38] Adam Cox: Yeah. That's...

[00:05:39] Kyle Risi: that is the thing though, right? Because William was so convinced his poems were a work of literary genius that whenever anybody visibly cringed he would literally interpret that as them being so overwhelmed by the beauty- ... of his words that they were just kind of shutting their eyes to contemplate on what he was saying.

[00:05:54] Adam Cox: But surely they'd be, like, screwing up their face, and it's like, "Oh, he's really enjoying

[00:05:57] Kyle Risi: it." He, he would misinterpret it in completely the opposite way. But Adam, audiences didn't scurry away because there was something about William. It was both a combination of his terrible poems and his enormous, unflappable self-belief that made listening to him very entertaining.

It was a level of entertainment that just wouldn't work if he knew how bad he was.

[00:06:19] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:06:20] Kyle Risi: Because, like, people are looking at him going like, "He genuinely believes that he is a genius" but that's what made it funny.

[00:06:27] Adam Cox: And are people, like, applauding him and,

[00:06:29] Kyle Risi: encouraging him? Applauding, cheering. Exactly. They are egging him on.

[00:06:32] Adam Cox: Are they like, "Well done, little guy"? Good job, buddy

[00:06:37] Kyle Risi: Yes. What is incredible is that William McGonagall managed to carve out a career as the world's worst poet, and even more than a century after his death, people are still literally talking about him.

And as baffling as it seems to us today, the key to his longevity may have been not about his poems at all, but may have been because William McGonagall was secretly a genius.

And so today on The Compendium, I'm gonna tell you the story of William McGonagall, his attempt to becoming a Shakespearean actor, his determination to become Queen Victoria's official poet, and the poem that secured his reputation as the world's worst poet.

[00:07:14] Adam Cox: I am intrigued is all I'm gonna say. The fact that he wanted to be the official Queen's poet-

[00:07:19] Kyle Risi: They call it the Poet Laureate, which at the time was Lord Tennyson.

[00:07:23] Adam Cox: I'm sorry, how busy is he? I can't imagine that's like, he's, rushed off his feet writing poetry for the Queen.

[00:07:29] Kyle Risi: Well, I mean, he's doing other things as well, but yeah, like, he, he carves an entire career out of this, but also remember, he's trying to find gigs and he's trying to sell his poems as well. So that's taken up a lot of his time, 'cause he never becomes the Queen's Poet , ever.

[00:07:40] Adam Cox: Well, I'm guessing so.

[00:07:41] Kyle Risi: No. So Adam, as is tradition on The Compendium, I'm going to begin with the most original opening in the history of biographical storytelling. William McGonagall was born, except we've got our first problem, because we don't actually know when William McGonagall was born.

We're fairly confident it was maybe some time in March, but the year is a bit of a mystery. Census records contradict one another, and it doesn't really help the fact that William himself also had a really bad habit of embellishing some of the details of his own life.

[00:08:11] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:08:12] Kyle Risi: However, researchers have narrowed down his birth to somewhere between 1825 and 1830, but that's as about as precise as we're gonna get when it comes to placing his age.

But we also have a problem with where he was born.

For most of his life, William himself always maintained that he was born in Edinburgh, but again, according to the 1841 census, his birthplace was Ireland, as was the birthplace of his parents. The McGonagalls as a family, they were relatively poor.

William was one of five children, and the family often moved around to find work, which is probably what brought them to Scotland in the first place, first arriving in Glasgow. Now, the reason why the family maintained that they were Scottish likely came down to Scotland's poor law at the time, which basically put non-native Scots at a disadvantage when it came to like, financial assistance, like benefits and things like that.

Likely, they got less benefits or welfare than anybody else. So it's likely that the family just lied and just said, "We're Scottish." So it was a case of screw being dirt poor and Irish, from now on we're just regular poor and Scottish.

[00:09:12] Adam Cox: Lose the dirt.

[00:09:13] Kyle Risi: Lose the... Hey.

[00:09:15] Adam Cox: Th- th- that's what you said.

[00:09:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah, but you implied that the s- the Irish are dirty.

[00:09:19] Adam Cox: That's what you said.

[00:09:21] Kyle Risi: Ugh. It's around 1840 that the McGonagalls decided to relocate to Dundee, where William's father finds work as a handloom weaver. Now, it's not long after this, likely to help support the family, that William leaves school and also becomes an apprentice in the weaving industry, which is a bit of a disappointment for William.

Like, he really flourished at education. He was extremely bright, really academic, particularly when it came to literature and studying Shakespeare. And so suddenly he's just now spending his days sitting in a weaving factory, weaving fabrics, for hours and hours on end.

[00:09:55] Adam Cox: He must have had a teacher, though, early on that was like, "You're gonna be something someday."

[00:10:00] Kyle Risi: Do you think?

[00:10:00] Adam Cox: Yeah, your, your, your English poetry, so good.

[00:10:03] Kyle Risi: Possibly. I mean, he was a bit of an, a, a, what's the term? An autodidact, I think, where he's very much self-taught, so he will kinda progress his own reading ability, his skills in all sorts of things academically on his own, because he's got such a passion for education.

[00:10:18] Adam Cox: What did you call that?

[00:10:19] Kyle Risi: I think, like, a didact?

[00:10:20] Adam Cox: An autodidact.

[00:10:21] Kyle Risi: I d- I think so. I don't know. I've

[00:10:23] Adam Cox: never heard that before.

[00:10:24] Kyle Risi: Me neither. I made that up. I'm sure I've read it somewhere. But the thing is, though, despite not particularly loving the work that he was doing as a weaver, William is actually really excellent.

So good, in fact, that when the Industrial Revolution started making handloom weavers obsolete, he was one of the very few who managed to hold onto his job. And it's because even though machinery was automating a lot of the weaving, they still needed really skilled weavers to handle the more intricate tasks.

And so he was excellent at that, and so they kept him on. It's at this mill in 1846 that William meets his wife, Jean. The pair eventually marry, and they begin having what will be their first of eventually seven children. I think that's too many children Do you know what I mean? Seven, yeah, five is fine.

Seven is too much. Six I can deal with, but seven-

[00:11:13] Adam Cox: I feel like, back then that's quite common, Adam ...

[00:11:16] Kyle Risi: you're hoping one was gonna die, right? Wow. A couple were gonna die. It- that's how it worked back then

[00:11:21] Adam Cox: Like, hedge your bets.

[00:11:23] Kyle Risi: Exactly.

[00:11:23] Adam Cox: No, but that was common back then, to have a family of seven, nine, 11.

I think my nan-

[00:11:29] Kyle Risi: They were all odd numbers. That's weird.

[00:11:30] Adam Cox: Yeah, it's usually odd numbers. Yeah, why? It's never even.

[00:11:32] Kyle Risi: No.

[00:11:32] Adam Cox: It's usually, like, a twin that just crops up, skews everything. No, but my nan, I'm sure she had eight brothers and sisters that survived, and then she had another two or three that didn't.

[00:11:42] Kyle Risi: Wow. And w- what did they die from? Like dysentery?

[00:11:46] Adam Cox: I

[00:11:46] Kyle Risi: don't- That's all we say. What is dysentery?

[00:11:47] Adam Cox: I don't know. She was born in the '20s, though.

[00:11:49] Kyle Risi: Is that significant?

[00:11:50] Adam Cox: I don't know. Did they have dysentery then?

[00:11:52] Kyle Risi: I don't- I think so. I don't know.

We need to brush up on our, like, , early turn-of-the-century ailments ' and so as you can imagine, working inside these factories was often mind-numbingly repetitive and boring.

It wasn't the time where you kind of had anything to really entertain yourself, like the radio or listening to, like, The Compendium, and so it was common for workers to entertain each other by either singing or reading novels to the rest of the people in the factory, right?

And this is where William happily steps in because he starts reading Shakespeare, and Adam, they are entertained, but it's not because he's very good.

In fact, he is atrocious. His recitals are super awkward, often so over the top and so bad that they sort of unintentionally become hilarious, but also entertaining at the same time.

[00:12:39] Adam Cox: I mean, you'd want that if you're doing some really mundane work. You want some kind of comedy in the corner.

[00:12:44] Kyle Risi: Exactly. So while his coworkers loved it, take that and put that on the stage, it's a whole different thing, right?

[00:12:50] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:12:50] Kyle Risi: And so that's exactly why people loved it, but not for the reasons that William thought. He genuinely believed that he was incredible, and so he begins to imagine what it would be like to perform for real on stage.

And so one afternoon he goes down to the local theater and auditions for a part in a production of Macbeth that is happening in a few months.

Adam, it does not go well. This comes directly from Stephen Pyle's book. He's a British journalist and humorist, and he writes,

"William McGonagall's first stage appearance was as Macbeth at Mr. Giles' Theater in Dundee in 1858. Realizing what a talent McGonagall had, Mr. Giles said he could only appear if a large sum of money was paid to the theater in cash before the performance."

William has essentially been rejected by the theater, but they're not explicitly saying "Listen, buddy, you cannot act." They're rejecting him in a sort of theatrical kind of camp sarcastic way, saying, "The only way in hell that you will get on that stage is if you pay us an extraordinarily large amount of money."

[00:13:52] Adam Cox: He was abysmal.

[00:13:53] Kyle Risi: He was abysmal. Monica, your cooking is abysmal. Here's the problem. William does not pick up onto that nuance. What he hears is them saying, "Yes, you can be part of the production, and this is the membership fee."

[00:14:07] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:14:08] Kyle Risi: So back at the factory, his colleagues ask how the audition went. He tells them what the theater had said about this membership fee, and they're all kind of side-eyeing each other, snickering amongst themselves.

They know what's up, right?

And so believing that the world needed to see just how incredible William's stage presence was, the workers do a bit of a whip-round to raise the money to buy him into the production.

[00:14:28] Adam Cox: Now, I don't know if that's generous or they're just taking the joke too far.

[00:14:32] Kyle Risi: They're setting him up, basically. Yeah. Which does sound mean, and it does beg the question whether or not it's okay for us to laugh at him.

But here's the thing, Adam. William is delusional, but he's also completely 100% unflappable. It's water off a duck's back.

He has this inability to recognize any criticism about any of his talents or anything negative about him.

There is always another explanation, which will be a theme throughout his entire life and throughout the story.

So it's not clear whether or not this is intentional. Like, did he know that he was really bad and he was just kind of leaning into it, therefore kind of it being a little bit of a, a genius move? Because it, it's o- it's something that only works as long as he truly believes that he's incredible. Do, do you understand what I mean?

[00:15:17] Adam Cox: That's his personality. He's like that, or his bravado or whatever it is, like, he's putting on, I guess.

[00:15:21] Kyle Risi: That's right, yeah. Like him making himself an unknowledge butt of the joke is what makes him and his writing so bad that it's actually good in a way, but good in a way that only works as long as he never acknowledges that he was bad. Otherwise, it just becomes sad in a way.

Here's the other thing to know about William. He is an incredibly nice guy, and people genuinely like him. If he was arrogant or condescending, I don't think that his colleagues would be doing this whip-around the factory.

So while they're setting him up, I think it's because they see his ineptitude or his incompetence as a form of comedy that they kind of celebrate and love about him.

It's endearing in a way.

[00:15:59] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:00] Kyle Risi: So I don't think that they're doing it out of malice because they also are at the theater cheering him on.

[00:16:05] Adam Cox: Yeah, it doesn't sound like it, I guess. I mean, maybe they just want to see how far he can go-

[00:16:11] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm ...

[00:16:11] Adam Cox: and sort of support him.

[00:16:12] Kyle Risi: Well, anyway, Adam, William gets the part as Macbeth.

[00:16:15] Adam Cox: Macbeth?

[00:16:16] Kyle Risi: Macbeth, in a Shakespeare production at the local theater.

[00:16:19] Adam Cox: But surely, I thought the people at the local theater were like, "We don't really want you."

[00:16:23] Kyle Risi: No, unless you pay us money, and then when this money turned up, they were like, "

[00:16:26] Adam Cox: Mm, it's too good to not take the money." But then they've given him Macbeth- Mm-hmm ... the starring role. That's right. Not, like, just a, a side role.

[00:16:34] Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's right.

This is what William writes in his journal about the opening night:

"My shop mates were in high glee with the hope of getting a Shakespearean treat from me."

[00:16:46] Adam Cox: Is he doing poetry right now?

[00:16:47] Kyle Risi: No.

[00:16:47] Adam Cox: Oh. "

[00:16:48] Kyle Risi: And I can assure you, without boasting, they were not disappointed."

When William walks out onto stage, the entire theater literally erupts with cheers and applause, which inevitably does something really interesting to his confidence.

The applause is almost exclusively, obviously, coming from his colleagues, who know the impending shit show that is likely about to unfold.

William then says his first line: " so foul and fair a day I have not seen."

Adam, it's the first line of the play. It is so overly dramatic, way more than it needs to be, and in response, the crowd ends up roaring with a mix of mocking cheers and ironic applause, which eggs him on.

From there, every scene is met with the same energy, where the louder they get, the harder he ended up acting.

He's like, "Damn, the audience really loves me." It basically just confirms to him the majestic star power of his abilities during that performance.

And because of the constant cheering, the production gets really drawn out, because he has to constantly wait for the cheers to die down before he can get on with his next line.

And so Adam, by the time they get to the final scene, where Macbeth is supposed to enter into a duel with another actor playing a guy called Macduff, all the actors are literally exhausted.

And so just ahead of that final scene, Macduff pulls him aside, and he's like, "Please, can we just make this final scene, real quick?"

[00:18:09] Adam Cox: I need to get home to put the kids to bed.

[00:18:10] Kyle Risi: Exactly. He's like, "My babysitter needs to go home, and I've got an appointment with the bank in the morning."

William takes this request very differently. In his journal, he writes " I remember the other actors of the company felt very jealous owing to me getting the general applause and several were as bold enough to tell me," he continues.

"When it came to the combat scene between me and Macduff, the actor who was playing Macduff against my Macbeth tried to spoil me in combat by telling me to cut it short," he continues. " But I was too cute for him, guessing his motive for it, so I continued the combat until he was fairly exhausted." Basically, he refused to die.

[00:18:51] Adam Cox: But I've, stabbed you.

[00:18:53] Kyle Risi: Yes. He's running around stage. Macduff is like, "What is going on?"

William continues. Macduff was in a great rage and stomped his foot and cried out, 'Fall. Why won't you fall?'" And Adam, the audience just goes ballistic.

And like I said, the louder they cheered, the harder he acted, and the more he just ended up prolonging the scene.

[00:19:13] Adam Cox: I'm trying to work out if it's, like, the whole crowd that's doing this. Obviously, his workers are there, but have those workers, influenced the rest of the crowd behavior? Because they

[00:19:22] Kyle Risi: might- I think so. Yes, I think so. And it's the same. Like, if you're sitting at home and you're watching a comedy-

And it's really funny, you can sit there and you can laugh internally, but you're not laughing outwards.

But when you have other people in the room and there's something funny and other people laugh, you end up laughing as well. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I've often... You're slightly different, 'cause I've been upstairs sometimes and I've been listening to you watch Family Guy downstairs, and you're just cackling all over the place on your own, whereas I would never do that.

I would never just sit there and just laugh on my own.

[00:19:47] Adam Cox: Well, it's, well, it's funny.

[00:19:48] Kyle Risi: I know, but I would laugh internally. Do you understand what I mean?

[00:19:51] Adam Cox: What do you look like when you laugh internally?

[00:19:53] Kyle Risi: What do you mean?" What do you mean?

[00:19:56] Adam Cox: Because there's just no joy or expression if you're laughing.

[00:19:59] Kyle Risi: Oh, I'm happy on the inside. Got my cat, I'm stroking him, and I'm laughing on the inside.

[00:20:03] Adam Cox: Okay, weirdo.

[00:20:05] Kyle Risi: But here's the thing, I would've totally enjoyed watching this.

It sort of reminds me of the, The Play That Goes Wrong, where the stage intentionally falls apart and all the actors get knocked out or whatnot.

With William, it's like he's breaking the fourth wall, feeding off the reaction from the audience in a very comedic way.

But what makes it even funnier is that there's this air of genuine sincerity in his performance, like he's taking himself so seriously.

And it's probably really difficult for me to describe that, but it works because he believes it. Do you know what I mean?

[00:20:35] Adam Cox: It does sound like that, because you mentioned is he a genius or kind of leaning into this, and by his diary entry, which you think he'd be honest in- it sounds like he generally believed his talent.

[00:20:45] Kyle Risi: Here's the thing. A lot of those diary entries come from a book that he eventually publishes later on in his career, and there is a good question about whether or not he eventually realizes that actually he does better when he leans into this unflappableness, right, and the sincerity in his terribleness.

And so a lot of it comes from there, but there are some early examples of his writing where that isn't the case- Oh ... and he generally has this kind of delusion.

[00:21:10] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:21:11] Kyle Risi: And so it's interesting to know, like, this is the point of this episode, is to explore does he know or does he not know?

[00:21:17] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:21:17] Kyle Risi: And so Adam, that was William's debut in theater, and according to how he perceives it, it was a raging success.

He does a few more productions over the years, but acting never really becomes his main career. But the turning point into poetry comes in 1877, quite a number of years later. At this point, he's 52 years old.

At the time, the family were going through a bit of a scandal dealing with some reputational damage after their eldest daughter, Margaret, falls pregnant out of wedlock.

The family become the talk of the town, it also ends up affecting William's ability to find new work as a weaver. So it's one of those situations where an individual scandal sort of becomes a permanent stain on the whole family. It's very common back then. Do you know what I mean?

[00:21:56] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:56] Kyle Risi: It's during this family crisis that William says he is overcome with a sudden overwhelming divine epiphany.

This is how he describes it in his journal. "

I seem to feel as if it were a strange kind of feeling stealing over me and remained so for five minutes.

A flame, as Lord Byron had said, seemed to kindle up my entire frame, along with a strong desire to write poetry, and I felt so happy, so happy that I was inclined to dance."

He then describes how he started pacing the room, trying to shake off this feeling, but it only grew stronger and stronger before he started to hallucinate that a pen was manifesting manifesting in his right hand with a voice crying out, "Write. Write." And so he's, desperately trying to resist it.

He's like, "No, I don't want to write poetry. You can't make me." And then the voice is like, "Do it, damn it." And then he eventually is like, "Okay, I'll write poetry."

[00:22:50] Adam Cox: Do you know what? Well, I mean, if that's how he decided to land on poetry-

[00:22:55] Kyle Risi: That's his origin story.

[00:22:57] Adam Cox: If he was born in the 70s, he would be a hippie.

[00:23:00] Kyle Risi: Dude, he's not serious enough to be a hippie

[00:23:03] Adam Cox: I know. He's, he's definitely one, like altern- I don't know. He's, he's smoking weed at least

[00:23:08] Kyle Risi: He's taking something, isn't he?

And so Adam, at 52, during this very difficult family crisis, he gets this epiphany and now he was a poet basically.

His journal entries are sometimes just as entertaining as his poems. Like, he can write. That's not a bad piece of writing, but there's just something very comedic about how he arranges sentences. It's almost like how a child would write in a way. Do you know what I mean? Where there's a bit of an exaggeration with everything that he says.

[00:23:33] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:23:34] Kyle Risi: And so Adam William sits down at his desk and he writes his first poem. It is titled An Address to Reverend George Gillif land. He's basically a really influential Scottish minister at the time, and it goes, "All hail to Reverend George Gillif land of Dundee. He's the greatest preacher I ever did see.

He is a man of genius bright, and in him his congregation does delight. Because they find him to be honest and plain, affable in temper, and seldom known to complain. A preacher in his plain and straightforward way, the people flock to hear him night and day. And hundreds from the doors are often turned away because he's the greatest preacher of the present day.

He has written the life of Sir Walter Scott, and while he lives, he will never be forgot, nor when he is dead because his admirers will often be read and fill their minds with wonder and delight.

And while away the tedious hours on a cold winter's night, he has also written about bards of the Bible." What?

"Which occupied nearly three years in which he was not idle Because when he sits down to write, he does it with might and main, and to get an interview with him would almost be vain. And in that he is always right, for the Bible tells us, 'Whatever your hands findeth to do, do it with all your might.'

Reverend George Gillif land of Dundee, I must conclude my muse. And to write in praise of thee, my pen does not refuse, nor does it give me pain to tell the world fearlessly that when you are dead, they shall not look upon your like again."

That is it.

[00:25:16] Adam Cox: If I received that

[00:25:18] Kyle Risi: This is in homage to a reverend.

[00:25:21] Adam Cox: Yeah. I'd be like, "Thanks?"

[00:25:26] Kyle Risi: There's just no consistency in the rhythm at all, is there?

[00:25:28] Adam Cox: No, 'cause it started off okay. It's got a... Yeah, and then it just went

[00:25:31] Kyle Risi: And they're really basic rhymes as well.

[00:25:33] Adam Cox: Yeah. And I don't know, but it dragged on a lot.

[00:25:35] Kyle Risi: It, I mean, that was a struggle to say. I think maybe if I had rehearsed it a few more times, I mean, there was a lot of retakes there, guys.

[00:25:41] Adam Cox: I mean, I don't think you'd have made the poem better.

[00:25:44] Kyle Risi: No, thank you, Adam. I take that as a compliment. And like we said earlier on, like, poets adopt this, iambic pentameter, is that right?

[00:25:51] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:52] Kyle Risi: Which is what gives a poetry that sense of flow in song, right? He just completely ignores that. But also, for a poem and for a poet, this is very literal. There's no flowery language. There's no use of metaphor or symbolism.

[00:26:05] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:26:05] Kyle Risi: He just does not have any time for that.

[00:26:07] Adam Cox: He just says, "We're gonna miss you when you're dead."

[00:26:09] Kyle Risi: Yeah. "

[00:26:11] Adam Cox: You're doing all right."

[00:26:12] Kyle Risi: And so this is his first poem. Adam, when it's finished, he decides to post it to the Dundee Weekly News, who, without hesitation, they publish it.

[00:26:20] Adam Cox: Why?

[00:26:21] Kyle Risi: Here's the thing: it is a terrible poem. The thing that carries it is its sincerity. Like, he is serious.

If this was written by a known comedian or a satirist, it wouldn't be funny because the irony would be obviously forced.

Every line is written with such absolute pride and devotion to this preacher, which the Dundee Weekly News say is something that sort of transcended its own badness.

And so they print the poem, and alongside it they include a tongue-in-cheek editorial note saying,

"Even William Shakespeare had never written anything quite like this."

And so that is designed to egg him on and keep him writing, because it is so bad that it is good.

[00:27:04] Adam Cox: Wow. I, I'm kinda glad he is being celebrated, 'cause he's doing no harm at this, at

[00:27:09] Kyle Risi: the end

[00:27:09] Adam Cox: of

[00:27:09] Kyle Risi: the day.

He's not doing any harm, and this is the thing. If he was a douchebag and really kinda self-absorbed, I would get it. This wouldn't work.

People genuinely like him. Like, he has really close friends that really care about him and that really do carry him through really difficult times.

It wouldn't work if he was a scumbag.

[00:27:25] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:27:25] Kyle Risi: Once again, Adam, William does not pick up on the nuance from the Dundee Weekly News. He takes the note completely at face value, this is the moment that solidifies his lifelong belief that he was, in fact, a literary genius.

This is it. He's out. The cat is out of the bag.

[00:27:41] Adam Cox: He actually thinks he's the next William Shakespeare.

[00:27:44] Kyle Risi: He does.

So after this, William decides that as with all amazing poets, he needed a patron to support his literary genius. This is often how artists and poets and kind of actors of the day made money.

They would find like a rich dude or like a pope or a wealthy socialite that would then pay them to kind of work on their art.

A good example would've been, um, towards the end of his life, Leonardo da Vinci, where I think his patron became like the king of France at the time, where he set him up in a house and he was like, "You live there.

you just be yourself and I will pay you. I will support you to do your art." That's what he's basically looking for. I

[00:28:20] Adam Cox: see. What are the chances you think one of our patreons might do that for us?

[00:28:24] Kyle Risi: I'm hoping so. That's why we have the mystery tier.

Which is 1,000 pounds a month, but everyone's interested.

[00:28:32] Adam Cox: Yeah, put us up in a castle.

[00:28:34] Kyle Risi: Yeah. We will do dirty things.

So William's belief in himself is so massive that not just any old patron will do. In fact, there was only one patron worthy of supporting his craft, someone who he knew had a ton of money, plus also whose address he knew.

[00:28:50] Adam Cox: Right.

[00:28:51] Kyle Risi: Queen Victoria.

[00:28:52] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:28:53] Kyle Risi: William writes to the Queen asking whether or not she'd be willing to become his patron. He includes a couple poems, one of which is entitled A Requisition to the Queen. The gist of the letter is, "If you want more of this, you can pay me,

[00:29:05] Adam Cox: please." Straight to the point.

[00:29:07] Kyle Risi: Amazingly, a few weeks go by and the palace writes back to him.

It's written by one of the Queen's aides, who, of course, handle all of her posts on her behalf. Like, they're not disturbing the Queen with some random chump's poetry, right?

And so in the letter, they are in effect rejecting him, but in a very polite way.

[00:29:24] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:24] Kyle Risi: As you can probably imagine, in a way that William does not pick up on. Basically, it says, "Thank you, but no thank you." And it reads,

"The Royal Secretary is commanded to thank Mr. McGonagall for the verses that he has been good enough to forward, and to intimate that Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to accept them."

Graciously pleased to accept them is basically palace terms for we've put these fucking things in the bin.

[00:29:53] Adam Cox: I mean, to be fair, I didn't get that from that.

[00:29:55] Kyle Risi: No, I wouldn't either.

[00:29:56] Adam Cox: I'd be like, "Wow- Yeah ... she perhaps pop them on the fridge."

[00:29:59] Kyle Risi: Yeah, William does not pick up on this nuance, and so Adam, from that moment on, he starts promoting himself as the Queen's official poet.

[00:30:05] Adam Cox: To be honest, I don't blame this guy because I feel like everyone has not been straight with him. They'd, like, all cheered him on to the point, of course he's believed his brilliance.

[00:30:15] Kyle Risi: But l- look what the theater said. "We will not put you up on the stage unless you pay us money." Come on. How do you mistaken that? And apparently, this letter at the time would've been very much read as a... I mean, this is not an invite for him to be the poet laureate, Adam.

[00:30:30] Adam Cox: I know, but, I feel just at this point in time, that's where his head's at because they haven't said, " don't contact us again."

[00:30:36] Kyle Risi: True. True. True But here's the thing, right? After the Dundee Weekly News publishes his first poem and essentially eggs him on to keep writing, That's exactly what he does. It's a big mistake because it gets very tedious for the Dundee Weekly News. Because essentially they don't actually wanna publish any more of his poems, and so he inquires why they're not publishing the other poems that he sent, especially when they begged him on, and they basically tell him that his poems are not good.

And so in response, William shows them the letter from the Queen and is like, "They couldn't possibly be bad because, Her Majesty has thanked me personally for the poem that I sent her." And so again, he's completely unflappable.

[00:31:14] Adam Cox: Yeah. Well-

[00:31:16] Kyle Risi: Come on.

[00:31:16] Adam Cox: Okay, fair point. But I just feel like he's probably been egged on enough at this point and just kind of like upping the level of respect that he's getting, if that makes sense.

[00:31:25] Kyle Risi: Potentially, and I mean, we don't even know if at this point he's actually now realized actually he's bad, but actually he can make a character out of himself from pretending that he doesn't see it.

Do you know what I mean?

[00:31:37] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:37] Kyle Risi: Who knows? And so following this, William is not ready to let go of the Queen. Her letter's only elevated his confidence in his poetic abilities even more, and so he decides that the best way to enhance his reputation will be to give a live performance of his poetry to the Queen herself.

[00:31:54] Adam Cox: How is he gonna manage that?

[00:31:55] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. Remember, she has not invited him to do this.

[00:31:59] Adam Cox: Has she even read the poem?

[00:32:00] Kyle Risi: No. She's definitely not read the poem. And so Adam, in July of 1878, William sets off on foot from Dundee to Balmoral- Oh ... where the Queen was holidaying. It takes him several days. It's like 60 miles away.

Again, along the way, he writes in tedious detail about the different inns that he visits. Because he doesn't have much money, he would normally offer to entertain the guests in exchange for a bed or for food for the night. Big mistake for William, an absolute treat for the innkeepers.

At the time, William was also a member of the International Organization for what they called the Good Templars, which was this sort of fraternal organization that heavily promoted the awareness of the dangers of excessive drinking.

And so a lot of his poems carried these messages. And so what happens is that when he goes to these inns and he's reciting his poems and trying to sell his pamphlets, a lot of these poems have these messages, and what ends up happening is he just gets pelted with food and rubbish. I

[00:32:58] Adam Cox: was gonna say, like, um, these people are drunk. Yeah. They do not appreciate this.

[00:33:03] Kyle Risi: Which is a very big clue that, A, he does not know his audience, lecturing punters in a pub about drinking is a no-go. But also, B, your poems are just not very good. Do you know what I mean? Surely you must know if people are pelting food at you at this point.

You must know.

[00:33:19] Adam Cox: But what does he make of this, then? How does he spin this?

[00:33:22] Kyle Risi: Okay. So he comes up with a conspiracy theory to explain why the punters kept throwing food at him.

William writes, "My dear friends, a publican," which is an innkeeper or a pub owner, "is a creature that would wish to decoy all the money out of the people's pockets that enter his house. He does not want to give any of their money away for intellectual entertainment, which translates the pub owners were actively trying to ruin his performances so the punters would spend more of their money on beer instead of the poetry pamphlets.

[00:33:56] Adam Cox: Uh.

[00:33:58] Kyle Risi: Because of course, he was selling his poems at these pubs as well. That is how he interprets it. I know it's confusing, but that's what he's thinking.

[00:34:05] Adam Cox: Yeah, he's ... This, okay.

[00:34:07] Kyle Risi: He's unflappable.

[00:34:08] Adam Cox: I'm, I'm just like, this guy is so deluded.

[00:34:11] Kyle Risi: He, see what I'm saying? It's weird.

[00:34:13] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:34:15] Kyle Risi: But he can't be. At what point has he gone, "This actually works in my favor"? Do you know what I mean? I don't know. But he's not- At what point does he lean into it?

[00:34:23] Adam Cox: Like... Sure, he's getting, keep or, like, a, a roof over his head that night, but he's not, like, earning a lot of money or anything,

[00:34:30] Kyle Risi: not yet.

[00:34:31] Adam Cox: Oh, he, he does?

[00:34:32] Kyle Risi: He earns some money.

[00:34:33] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:34:34] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam, eventually William gets to Balmoral. When he announces to the guards that he was, in fact, the Queen's official poet the guards are like, "Lol, no, you're not. Lord Tennyson is the Queen's official poet." Of course, William is having none of it, and so what he does is he pulls out his rejection letter from the Queen and shows them proof.

They're like, "This does not say that you are the Queen's official poet." And he's like, "Guys, you need to just be able to learn to read between the lines." And they're like- ... "Lol, no."

Long story short, after walking 60 miles over several days, the guards turn him away. A, because he wasn't the Queen's poet. But also, the Queen wasn't even in residence.

[00:35:14] Adam Cox: What a waste of

[00:35:14] Kyle Risi: time. So he did... I know. He did all that for nothing adam, we now come to probably William's most famous poem, which is what kind of solidifies him as the world's worst poet. It's written in 1880, and it is titled The Tay Bridge Disaster.

The poem comes out of a very intense period of mourning for the people of Dundee, and also the people of Scotland, and it basically recounts the collapse of the Tay Rail Bridge just as a passenger train was passing over it.

In the end, all 75 people on board were killed. It was awfully tragic, and it is considered a pretty disastrous ordeal at the time.

I won't read the whole poem because it is very long, but I will leave a link to the full poem in the show notes for you guys to read along if you're interested.

But the poem opens with, " Beautiful railway bridge of the silvery Tay. Alas, I'm sorry to say that 90 lives have been taken away on this last Sabbath day of 1879, which will be remembered for a very long time."

So first of all, it's 75 lives that were taken, not 90.

[00:36:16] Adam Cox: I was gonna ask, but was he just rounding up to rhyme?

[00:36:18] Kyle Risi: Maybe 90 is more dramatic, I don't know. But also remember, this is supposed to be an elegy, which, is, like, something that talks about grief or, solemnity. Do you know what I mean?

[00:36:28] Adam Cox: You mean an eulogy?

[00:36:29] Kyle Risi: Not an eulogy, an elegy.

[00:36:30] Adam Cox: An elegy.

[00:36:31] Kyle Risi: E-L-E-G-Y, which is, like, something that's deeply sad or grief-ridden.

[00:36:36] Adam Cox: Okay. Yeah. But this doesn't seem that sensitive so far.

[00:36:39] Kyle Risi: N- n- mm, exactly. It sounds more like a police report- like... It basically is just saying where and when it happened, right?

[00:36:44] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:36:45] Kyle Risi: It continues. "Twas about seven o'clock at night, and the wind blew with all its might, and the rain came pouring down and the dark clouds seemed to frown, and the demon of the air seemed to say, 'I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay.'"

From there, he goes on to basically describe the moment that the bridge collapses, killing all the passengers that were traveling across it.

And what is very noticeable is that the poem starts out rhyming, but very quickly, completely falls away.

You can also really see him struggling to make the lines rhyme, because he has to do that thing that I said in the beginning. He has to stretch out the line until he can land a rhyming word.

But even then, after a while, he's like, "Nah, fuck rhyming altogether.

I'm not gonna bother," and he just gives up on the rhyming.

[00:37:28] Adam Cox: Now, the media student in me- Mm-hmm ... would've looked at that and gone, "Well, is that not just a metaphor, the fact that this day started out fine and everything, you know, is rhyming. And then as the event happened, then obviously shit hit the fan, and therefore things didn't have to rhyme, and things went on longer to show the disaster of the day and the fact that it was no longer okay."

[00:37:50] Kyle Risi: You got that from that? Very smart, yes. Maybe you needed to be kind of that person to bring the meaning to the poem.

[00:37:58] Adam Cox: Yeah, I got it.

[00:38:00] Kyle Risi: And it gets way worse.

[00:38:01] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:38:02] Kyle Risi: Here's a good example of what I mean, like, where the rhyming just doesn't work. He says, "And the cry was, 'The bridge is down! The bridge is down!' And as for the truth of it, there were many to look and frown."

[00:38:14] Adam Cox: Oh. I take it back.

[00:38:18] Kyle Risi: I just don't get it.

Also, everything is so literal. There's no imagery, there's no symbolism. It's all just very matter of fact. Like, this is a poem about a deeply tragic disaster, and yet he says, "Then the train left Edinburgh. The passengers' hearts were light and felt no sorrow.

But the Boreas blew a terrible gale, which made their hearts full to quail.

And many of the passengers with fear did say, 'I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay.'" It's so bad.

[00:38:50] Adam Cox: It's not good.

[00:38:51] Kyle Risi: It's not good. It's not great.

[00:38:53] Adam Cox: He's no Siegfried Sassoon.

[00:38:55] Kyle Risi: What's that?

Siegfried Sassoon?

[00:38:57] Adam Cox: Siegfried- I don't know if I've said his name. I'm pretty sure, was he a World War I poet? I might have got that wrong. Do

[00:39:03] Kyle Risi: you mean Siegfried?

[00:39:03] Adam Cox: Siegfried.

[00:39:04] Kyle Risi: Siegfried.

[00:39:05] Adam Cox: Siegfried

[00:39:05] Kyle Risi: Sassoon. Is he, Swedish or from Finland?

[00:39:07] Adam Cox: Let me check. So Siegfried Loraine Sassoon.

[00:39:11] Kyle Risi: Oh, that's a, must family name.

[00:39:12] Adam Cox: I think he dropped that- Yeah ... when he became famous.

Was an English war poet, and yeah, he was, talking about, like, the bravery and the war on the Western Front. So I remember studying, and he'd always use, words that would, kinda convey, sounds and things at the time, like-

[00:39:25] Kyle Risi: Onomatopoeia.

[00:39:26] Adam Cox: Yeah, like- I

[00:39:26] Kyle Risi: knew that one.

[00:39:27] Adam Cox: Like gurgling and stuff like that- Ooh ... which sounds like blood gurgling and things. Oh,

[00:39:31] Kyle Risi: God. How does he compare to, uh, William McGonagall?

[00:39:34] Adam Cox: I'm gonna say I didn't study William McGonagall- Mm-hmm ... in English A level.

[00:39:38] Kyle Risi: But we are now. And so?

[00:39:42] Adam Cox: Um, tell me more of his work.

[00:39:45] Kyle Risi: Adam, probably the kicker in this poem is how the poem ends, because instead of offering some sort of profound moral takeaway from the disaster, or offering a few words of comfort for the families or the victims who have lost their lives.

William instead decides to impart some very unsolicited engineering advice to the builders of the bridge. Oh, God.

[00:40:06] Adam Cox: Now is not the time.

[00:40:08] Kyle Risi: He says, "I must now conclude my lay by telling the world without dismay that your central girders would not have given way, at least many sensible men do say, had they had been supported on each side with buttresses."

" At least many sensible men confess, for the stronger we our houses do build, the less chance we will have of being killed."

Basically, he's saying, well, the accident wouldn't have happened if you supported them more with a, a couple more buttresses on each side, basically.

But also, how incredible is that he has rhymed buttresses with confesses? I mean, that is literary genius if I've ever seen it.

[00:40:49] Adam Cox: I mean, uh, buttresses is a hard word to rhyme with.

Yeah. I think he's done all right there.

[00:40:54] Kyle Risi: He has. But, this is meant to be, like I said, an elegy, where it's supposed to be something that's tragic and somber, and he's giving the builders of the bridge advice on how they should have built it to avoid this- catastrophe.

[00:41:09] Adam Cox: yeah, you were right when you were saying, like, this feels like just a factual news report.

[00:41:12] Kyle Risi: It's so literal, isn't it?

[00:41:13] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:41:14] Kyle Risi: And so of course, when the poem is released, it draws a lot of attention towards him on account of how just completely mismatched the verses are to the actual tragedy that happened. It's just so rhythm deaf and tone deaf.

[00:41:27] Adam Cox: Yeah, yeah.

[00:41:28] Kyle Risi: And like, if this poem had been written by anyone else, again, they would've been canceled.

This was a deeply traumatic period of mourning for Dundee and Scotland. But what is very apparent is that it's written with complete sincerity.

Like, he's not mocking the dead. He's trying his absolute best to be the nation's voice of grief in the light of this tragedy.

But it doesn't do that, and instead people are like, "This happened very recently. Is it okay to laugh at this?"

Either way, it's this poem that solidifies his reputation as the undisputed king of catastrophically bad poetry, essentially, but also identifies his niche as a tragedian, so basically writing poems about other tragedies that happen all around the UK, and they're all equally similar to this.

[00:42:10] Adam Cox: Oh, so this wasn't, like, just a one-off. This is-

[00:42:13] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Okay. But he's now defined his niche basically as, like, do you know what? This is the poem that's kind of made me famous. In his mind, not for what he thinks.

[00:42:21] Adam Cox: Yeah, yeah.

[00:42:22] Kyle Risi: But he's like, "I found my niche. I'm gonna be a, a tragedian."

[00:42:25] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:42:27] Kyle Risi: And so from here on, if there's any major disaster anywhere in the British Empire, he basically writes about it. And he would then print these on these broadsheets, which he would then sell in the streets for, like, a penny a pop.

And so his catalog fills up with these poems about these major kind of fires, these shipwrecks, battles.

All in all, he gets, like, 258 poems that are known to survive, which you can, of course, go and read in a book that he eventually publishes, which we'll come onto later on.

It's just incredible.

But very often, what makes these poems more entertaining is that he also documents the story behind the poems, which is often documented in very tedious detail, that make you appreciate the poems even more and more once you know the context and the weird story that goes behind them .

[00:43:11] Adam Cox: So there's a story for every, almost like behind the scenes.

[00:43:14] Kyle Risi: Yes, exactly, he's very much about the journey rather than the destination. It's like someone says, "Oh, how did you meet your husband?" And they, like, "Oh, it all started in the seventh grade when I showed aptitude for the clarinet." And it's like, "Oh, God, here we go." It's that kinda thing.

[00:43:27] Adam Cox: Right.

[00:43:28] Kyle Risi: A really good example of a poem that he writes is a poem he writes about the famous Tay whale.

The story, Adam, is about this humpback whale that randomly appears at the mouth of the river.

It ends up attracting a ton of people from all over who come flocking to kinda see it. But then some whalers decide that they're gonna kill the whale instead.

[00:43:47] Adam Cox: When you say whalers, are they whaling or they're, they're into whales?

[00:43:51] Kyle Risi: They're killing the whales.

[00:43:52] Adam Cox: Oh, okay.

[00:43:53] Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's why I said the, the line literally said, "They decide that they were going to kill it."

That would be the clue.

Any more clarifying questions? Um, no.

So basically they harpoon it. The whale then drags the ship for a moment, and like for a moment it looks like they're all gonna die. But then the whale manages to break free, and unfortunately, seven days later, the whale ends up dead like, off the coast somewhere, like in Seven Oaks or whatever.

But it's okay, because some rich businessman then buys the whale and then charges people six pence to see it.

But then they decide that they wanna make even more money from the whale carcass, and they decide they're gonna do a public dissection of this whale.

Adam, this story is so long, so drawn out, and so tedious, and eventually ends with William saying, " and then I went down to the seashore and I wrote a poem, and here it is."

And it's literally, like, four lines long.

[00:44:50] Adam Cox: I mean, the story is kind of interesting that there was this whale.

[00:44:53] Kyle Risi: It is. But what I'm saying is, like, it's, his writing is just tedious. That's the point I'm trying to make.

But we are going to come to a very specific story that I'm going to go through and tell you about it in just a second.

[00:45:07] Adam Cox: I do have one more question about the whale.

[00:45:08] Kyle Risi: Go on then.

[00:45:09] Adam Cox: This guy, he bought the whale.

[00:45:10] Kyle Risi: Mm.

[00:45:11] Adam Cox: Who is he buying that whale from?

[00:45:13] Kyle Risi: Yeah, I couldn't work it out Some fishermen, I think they found the whale, and then the fishermen decided to auction the whale, and then he bought the whale for £256, which is the equivalent of, like, 36,000.

I mean, I did write this whole thing out and I- ... just had to get rid of it. That's why I remember it. And then he bought the whale. He displayed it, and then I think the whale was, like, rotting, and then some other guy from a university was like, "Do you know what? We can make even more money. Let's dissect it."

And then they decided to dissect it. It was so long, so winded, and then just resulted in him going down to wherever the whale was and writing a poem and then selling it on postcards.

[00:45:50] Adam Cox: Wow, that sounded like one of William's stories.

[00:45:52] Kyle Risi: Yeah, where you just think you're gonna die. But here is a story that we will egg out because I found it hilarious and pointless.

By the year 1880, after the Tay Bridge poem brings him a bit of notoriety, William is a bit miffed that the success, in inverted commas, of the poem hasn't made him into the household name that he thought he would be by now.

[00:46:15] Adam Cox: I know, I'm shocked.

[00:46:16] Kyle Risi: I know. Again, in excruciating detail, he writes about if he wanted to make it big in the world of poetry, he needed to go to London, basically.

But to get to London, William needed money for a train fare, and so the story of how he gets the money is another one of these really odd stories. Oh, my

God. at the time, there was this very famous Irish playwright called... I'm gonna try and say his surname, but then I'm just gonna call him Dion. His name is Dion Boucicault. It's B-O-U-C-I-C-A-U-L-T.

Can you pronounce that, Adam? Dion. D- Dion is his name. Now, according to William, Dion sent him a letter asking him to have lunch because he wanted to discuss the possibility of working together on a UK tour.

All right?

Uh-huh. So as you can imagine, William thinks, "This is it. This is gonna be my big break," right?

And so he arrives at the restaurant. William writes, " I was received very kindly and shown upstairs to a little room. I think it was the smoking room, and I knocked at the door, and it was answered by one of the gentlemen.

Of course, I knew him, and he introduced me to the gentleman who was impersonating the character of Dion."

Straightaway, William is saying that this playwright, Dion, isn't actually him, it's just someone else pretending to be Dion.

[00:47:28] Adam Cox: Right.

[00:47:28] Kyle Risi: Okay. He continues, "And he asked me how I was, and I told him I was well and hoping to find him the same."

[00:47:35] Adam Cox: God.

[00:47:38] Kyle Risi: "He then told me he had heard much about my historic abilities and he would engage me and give me a salary of 20 pounds a week, food included. And the other gentleman present said it was a little enough for a man of my abilities, but all the while I knew he was an imposter."

Okay.

And so basically he's sitting there knowing that this guy isn't Dion, and when the waiting staff bring them their drinks, William decides that he's going to psych out the faker.

[00:48:07] Adam Cox: Okay. Right.

[00:48:08] Kyle Risi: So he goes on in his journal,

"So I laid it down on a little round table beside me," referring to his drink, "and I screwed up the courage to sticking the place and stare the imposter, Dion, in the face. And he felt rather uneasy, like he guessed I knew he wasn't the original. So he rose from his seat and made a quick retreat, and before leaving, he bade me good day, telling me he would see me again.

I then kept silent and stared the rest of my pretend friends until they couldn't endure the penetrating glance of my poetic eye, and they rose, and they left me in my glory."

He's basically saying that he just sat there and stared this fake Dion until he got so anxious that he left the restaurant and then he did the same to his mates that were also in on the hoax or whatever it might be

[00:48:54] Adam Cox: I mean, was he anxious Or was it the fact that it was just really super weird and the guy's like, "I'm, I'm gonna leave 'cause you haven't spoken in 10 minutes.

[00:49:01] Kyle Risi: You're just

[00:49:02] Adam Cox: looking

[00:49:02] Kyle Risi: at me." Probably. He's just staring at him. I would leave too. The story goes on, Adam, because remember this is how he gets to Trade Fair, if you haven't forgotten, right?

[00:49:10] Adam Cox: I did.

[00:49:10] Kyle Risi: Okay. Yeah. So he's, he's... This is the story about how he gets his £5 that gets him to London to make his fortune as a poet.

After the stare-out, he goes to the local theater and requests to speak to the manager where he shows him the fake letter that he got from Dion. The manager looks the letter and confirms it's not Dion's handwriting and William thinks, "I knew it."

[00:49:30] Adam Cox: Okay. Small win.

[00:49:30] Kyle Risi: The manager then asks if he can make a copy of the letter so that he can send it to the real Dion, right?

This is all in his journal. William agrees, and a few days later he receives a reply from the real Dion. He basically apologizes to William for having fallen victim to a practical joker and offers him a check for £5. In his journal he writes,

"So my dear friends, it was through me getting the £5 from Dion that I resolved to take a trip to London."

And that is the story of how William gets the money to travel to London to make his fortune.

[00:50:05] Adam Cox: Does he make his fortune?

[00:50:07] Kyle Risi: We're gonna get onto that. But isn't that just so weird?

It is so long and so convoluted, and it's all just purely about how he got this £5.

[00:50:16] Adam Cox: I mean, like, if this is his origin story, I'd have just made it up because- ... what actually happened- Do

[00:50:21] Kyle Risi: you honestly think this event actually happened in this restaurant with Dion?

[00:50:25] Adam Cox: I don't know. Are you saying it didn't?

[00:50:26] Kyle Risi: I don't know.

[00:50:27] Adam Cox: I mean, it's so dull that- ... I hope it did.

[00:50:30] Kyle Risi: Do

[00:50:30] Adam Cox: you think it's dull? Because if, if he thinks that this is interesting

[00:50:34] Kyle Risi: But come on, if someone came to you and said, "Hey, someone was pretending to be you, and they offered me a job, and I'm really upset about it," would you then expect them to give you compensation?

No, you'd be like, "Sorry, mate," like, "You fell victim to-

[00:50:47] Adam Cox: Yeah ...

[00:50:47] Kyle Risi: a scam. That's on you, mate."

[00:50:48] Adam Cox: Exactly.

[00:50:49] Kyle Risi: So th- therefore, I don't believe it.

[00:50:51] Adam Cox: That's true.

[00:50:52] Kyle Risi: It's just so weird. Why would this Dion guy give him £5? £5 is a lot of money.

[00:50:57] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:50:57] Kyle Risi: It costs a pound to get to London.

[00:50:58] Adam Cox: That's true in terms of... So why is he making this up?

[00:51:01] Kyle Risi: I don't know. It's just brilliant. Anyway, Adam, William goes to London.

Weirdly, he does not write a single word about what he does in London to make his fortune. Oh. That's it. After all of the long-winded stories to get to London, he doesn't write a single word. All he writes is about seeing the sights and going to the theater.

So, like, people exploring his work are really disappointed. Like, they've invested all this time reading this bullshit story only for him to, like, not mention anything about it.

They went along for the ride and then just nothing. Like, "Oh, I went to go see Les Mis," and that's it. It was fine, I guess.

[00:51:34] Adam Cox: Yeah. And so is there no sort of theories of why he's done this?

[00:51:38] Kyle Risi: No, I don't know.

I just don't think he's very good. I think that's it. I think that's the point. He's just not very good.

[00:51:43] Adam Cox: Or he was doing dirty stuff.

[00:51:46] Kyle Risi: Do you think he's too ashamed?

[00:51:47] Adam Cox: He didn't wanna write that down.

[00:51:48] Kyle Risi: No, maybe.

But I imagine the trip to London went similarly to what happens seven years later in 1887 when William tries to make his fortune again, this time, Adam, in New York.

When he's there, he cannot secure any gigs whatsoever because he's also performing as well. He's going to different kind of theaters, like, gonna recite some poetry or whatever it might be, do a bit of Shakespeare.

No one will book him.

He eventually resorts to trying to sell some of his poems on the street corner to, passerbys.

But no matter how hard he tries, nobody wants to buy any of his poems. According to William, Americans didn't wanna buy poetry from Brits.

Again, never once does he think that maybe, just maybe, the poems aren't very good and so they don't wanna buy them.

[00:52:31] Adam Cox: Yeah, and is it common for people just to buy poetry on the corner of a street?

[00:52:36] Kyle Risi: Apparently, yes. There'd be loads of merchants and stuff. But the, here's the thing, right? It's because part of his appeal is knowing that he is a bad poet, right? Knowing who he is and knowing that he's bad, you wanna own one of his poems.

[00:52:47] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:52:47] Kyle Risi: In the USA, they don't know him, so he is just a bad poet. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

[00:52:51] Adam Cox: Yeah, they haven't, support the underdog or, n- get to know him to actually wanna his-

[00:52:55] Kyle Risi: Exactly, they don't know his personality. They don't know, what he's like on stage, so to them he's just a bad poet.

[00:53:00] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:53:01] Kyle Risi: In his journal he writes, "When I couldn't get an engagement, I thought I would try to sell some of my poems I had fetched with me from Dundee. The first day I tried to sell them, it was a complete failure for this reason.

When they saw the royal coat of arms at the top of the poems, they got angry and said, 'Deuce with that. We won't buy that here. You better go back home to Scotland.'" He goes on, "Of course, I felt angry, no doubt, and regretted very much that I'd been so unlucky as to come to New York and resolved in my mind to get home as soon as possible."

So basically, after a very short time in New York, someone saying, "Nah, these are shit," he's like, "Screw you guys, I'm going home."

[00:53:38] Adam Cox: Right, okay.

[00:53:39] Kyle Risi: So, like, and remember, to get to New York at the time, this is the 1800s-

[00:53:43] Adam Cox: That's, like, a month or-

[00:53:44] Kyle Risi: Well, it's, eight to 10 days, right? It's not like a quick five-hour flight.

[00:53:47] Adam Cox: Yeah,

[00:53:48] Kyle Risi: yeah. But still, like, that's a lot of effort.

He goes on, "When I came back to my friend's house where he was staying in New York, I told him how I was treated when I offered my poems for sale, and he said to me, ' I'll tell you what you do. You just cut off the royal coat of arms, and people will buy them from you.' And when he told me to do so, I was astonished to hear him say, and so I told him no."

And it's because, Adam, he still believes he's the queen's poet.

[00:54:11] Adam Cox: Oh, God. Yeah, he's still pushing that. And so his friend is like, "Well, yeah, if you cut them off, people are gonna buy them."

[00:54:17] Kyle Risi: Yeah, if you're saying to me, if what you're saying, William, is true, that they won't buy them because you're a Brit, just cut off the English coat of arms.

[00:54:24] Adam Cox: Oh, yeah, yeah.

[00:54:25] Kyle Risi: But, but he's just like, "N- I'm the Queen's poet, so no, that's very important." So it's kind of like an identity pride thing.

[00:54:31] Adam Cox: Yeah, but even if I was in America, I'd be like, "Why is the Queen's poet busking on a street?"

[00:54:36] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Such a good point. Mm-hmm.

So he goes back to Dundee.

He does meander a little bit. He picks up a few gigs here or there. It's nothing long-term or steady, but eventually, he lands steady work performing at a circus for 15 shillings a night.

Now, remember, like I said earlier on, he isn't reciting just poetry. He's also incorporating a bit of Shakespeare, and in one scene, like he'll brandish a sword or whatever and, do, like, I don't know, Othello or whatever.

The circus, by the way, have hired him as a comedic sideshow act and are very aware that he is not good, right? They know him. They know- ... his act, right?

[00:55:11] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:55:11] Kyle Risi: But he's entertaining, And so what they do is they actively encourage the crowds to throw food at him, including eggs, herring, potatoes, and also, of all things, flour.

[00:55:21] Adam Cox: But he's gonna go like, "Oh, this is means that they love me."

[00:55:23] Kyle Risi: They're feeding me.

[00:55:25] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:55:26] Kyle Risi: A journalist who attended one of the gigs describes the chaos, but also how in response William, as they're throwing the food at him, he just starts slashing at the food to protect himself with the sword, which just makes the crowd go even more insane because he's naturally creating something very entertaining.

Do you know what I mean? He's just so unflappable. Any other person would just be, like, hanging their head in shame and just, like, stand there while- Yeah ... people, but he's not. He's like, he's part of it, which again brings us back to our central question. Is he deliberately leaning into this? Is his delusional poet kind of thing, is it all just an act?

It feels like it.

[00:56:05] Adam Cox: I don't know if it is. I, I generally think he's that deluded.

[00:56:08] Kyle Risi: Do you think?

[00:56:09] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:56:09] Kyle Risi: Maybe this will change your mind. Because like I said, he's not just standing there helplessly while people launch food at him. He's actively participating in the spectacle.

[00:56:17] Adam Cox: Are you told to bring food with you, or they just got buckets by your seat to

[00:56:20] Kyle Risi: throw at you?

Yes, and w- how wasteful. Where are they getting the food from?

[00:56:22] Adam Cox: Yeah. I thought back then, it's not like you have loads of food going around.

[00:56:25] Kyle Risi: Yeah, and who's bringing flour with them to the circus?

[00:56:28] Adam Cox: And herring. What are they cooking?

[00:56:31] Kyle Risi: What are you making? So I think this next part will help answer our question.

It's still up for debate, but let's see what you think.

Because word gets back to the local magistrates about what's happening and the chaos that his performances are causing, and the fact that people are essentially bullying him by throwing food.

And so as a result, the magistrates, they ban throwing food during his act. So if William genuinely was leaning into this, you would think that he would be grateful for that fact, right? Like, "Great. No one's gonna be throwing food at me." Nope. He is outraged, and so he writes a poem.

It's titled Lines in Protest to the Dundee Magistrates, and it begins, " Fellow citizens of Bonnie Dundee, are thee aware how the magistrates have treated me? Nay, do not stare or make a fuss when I tell thee they have boycotted me from appearing in the royal circus."

He's rhyming fuss with circus, Adam, which to me is evidence of his genius.

But he's essentially saying, "Can you believe the magistrates aren't allowing you to throw fruit and vegetables at me?"

[00:57:34] Adam Cox: Yeah, but, like, why is that a thing?

[00:57:36] Kyle Risi: It doesn't matter why it's a thing, right? I think, like, surely, he understands that people are there to chuck crap at him and to make fun of him and to jeer at him.

And if they can't do that, then is there even an act?

And the truth is, now that they banned it, he has no work because no one wants to come and just sit there quietly and listen to his poems or listen to his act.

And so he doesn't have a job at the circus anymore.

[00:58:00] Adam Cox: Oh, I see. I was just thinking, like, he sees that as an act of kind of like, "We love you," and if, people can't- Because they're

[00:58:07] Kyle Risi: feeding him.

[00:58:07] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:58:08] Kyle Risi: More Harry. Come.

[00:58:09] Adam Cox: Come. And so if people can't throw food at him, then they can't express their love for

[00:58:14] Kyle Risi: him. They're so delusional.

[00:58:16] Adam Cox: I think maybe I'm as deluded as this guy.

[00:58:19] Kyle Risi: It's like my favorite thing to do when I'm serving up your dinner. Sometimes, I'll, like, grab some mashed potato on the spoon and I'll slap it down on the table. I love doing that. That's my way of showing that I love you.

[00:58:28] Adam Cox: I appreciate that.

[00:58:29] Kyle Risi: Did you see that comment that someone left on- Spotify the other day.

[00:58:31] Adam Cox: No.

[00:58:32] Kyle Risi: I don't know if that they know that we're together, that we're boyfriends, but they obviously got, really perturbed, and they were like, "Guys, you just need to blow each other already."

[00:58:40] Adam Cox: Really? They did.

[00:58:45] Kyle Risi: No,

[00:58:46] Adam Cox: the last one I saw was, like, I think someone said, "If I had a pound or a penny for every time you say my name-"

[00:58:51] Kyle Risi: Yeah ... '

[00:58:52] Adam Cox: cause you say my name a lot. I

[00:58:52] Kyle Risi: do say your name a lot.

[00:58:54] Adam Cox: Is it because you forget who I am?

[00:58:55] Kyle Risi: No, I know exactly who you are. The thing is, though, I hate the name Adam.

I hate it.

And I'll tell you why. It's because in South Africa, I had only in my entire life met one boy called Adam, and he was very religious.

And in South Africa, no one is called Adam because it's the equivalent of calling your son Jesus, because it's Adam from the Bible, right? Mm-hmm. And just no one calls their child Adam.

And so when I came to the UK, every motherfucker's called Adam. I'm like, "Ugh."

[00:59:21] Adam Cox: Yeah, probably-

[00:59:22] Kyle Risi: Freaks me out ...

[00:59:23] Adam Cox: like, everyone that's called Adam was born in the '80s pretty much.

[00:59:26] Kyle Risi: When were you born?

[00:59:26] Adam Cox: Well, the '80s.

[00:59:27] Kyle Risi: Oh, yeah. Of course. Anyway, here's Rian Fuss with Circus.

[00:59:33] Adam Cox: Oh, we're, we're back on that.

[00:59:36] Kyle Risi: But yeah, my point is that I'm convinced that he is leaning into being the butt of the joke.

And again, remember, it is an act that only works if he maintains a sort of sincere unflappability in the character that he's built around and completely convinced in his craft.

And so I think at this point, by him writing this poem saying, "How dare the magistrates not let you throw food at me?" I think is a bit of a crack in that persona- Mm ... by him kind of revealing that actually I need this because I need that 15 shillings a week, right?

[01:00:06] Adam Cox: Yeah, yeah.

[01:00:06] Kyle Risi: And so it to me, proves that maybe he is leaning into it a bit. Maybe not at the beginning, but certainly now- when he knows that this is how he can make an income.

[01:00:14] Adam Cox: He is more self-aware than we think he is sort of thing.

[01:00:17] Kyle Risi: Exactly, and therefore, is he a genius?

[01:00:20] Adam Cox: Who knows. I don't know if I would go that far.

[01:00:23] Kyle Risi: And so after the magistrates banned people from pelting flour at him, which I don't quite get, there really isn't an act anymore. The appeal of the act for people was to jeer at him.

Without that, there's no act.

So again, he's left struggling to find work again. And so to help him out in the year 1890, a few of his friends, they band together to help him kind of fund the publication of a collection of his works, which again, like Adam, he seems like a good guy. He has friends willing to help him out, right?

There are big stretches of time where he can't find work, and yet he's relying on the generosity of his very close mates, and he seems to have a lot of them.

[01:00:55] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:00:56] Kyle Risi: The book is titled Poetic Gems. It's published in earnest, but is dubbed the definitive anthology of the greatest bad verse writer in human history.

[01:01:06] Adam Cox: That's what it's dubbed in, like-

[01:01:08] Kyle Risi: It's dubbed as by critiques and stuff, like- Oh, okay ...

[01:01:10] Adam Cox: when you buy it. I thought that was on the back of the book.

[01:01:12] Kyle Risi: Well, this is what kinda helps it sell, right? Because people are like, "You gotta buy this book. It's the worst book ever." And so it becomes a bit of a kind of a cult classic in a way

[01:01:19] Adam Cox: I see, yeah

[01:01:20] Kyle Risi: And again, it's not just poems. There's also part biography or autobiography. It's also part kinda travelogue and part scrapbook as well. So it's got all these kinda weird contextual bits around the poems.

Initially, it sells well, particularly in Dundee, largely because he's a bit of a local celebrity, right? So this reputation now precedes him, but anywhere else it's just bad poetry

[01:01:42] Adam Cox: Yeah. That's the thing. If you're, like, a local celebrity-

[01:01:45] Kyle Risi: It's like the- ... it makes sense ... Puppet Man. Can you imagine the Puppet Man in Norwich? This is a busker in Norwich. He's really beloved. Everyone loves him. Put him on the West End, and he's just a bad act. But here in Norwich, he's, like, amazing

[01:01:58] Adam Cox: Again, I wouldn't go with amazing.

[01:02:02] Kyle Risi: But he is, like... there's a parallel there

[01:02:04] Adam Cox: Yeah. There's

[01:02:05] Kyle Risi: a- Every, every town has that kinda weird character where it works in your town

[01:02:09] Adam Cox: Slightly eccentric-

[01:02:10] Kyle Risi: Yeah ...

[01:02:11] Adam Cox: weird act

[01:02:12] Kyle Risi: And you come to know them

[01:02:13] Adam Cox: Yes

[01:02:13] Kyle Risi: Yes

[01:02:14] Adam Cox: Yeah, exactly

[01:02:14] Kyle Risi: He is that kinda guy for me

[01:02:16] Adam Cox: Exact- yeah.

No, I agree with that. Yeah

[01:02:18] Kyle Risi: However, Adam, in 1892, William has enough of how the people of Dundee were treating him.

He basically is now threatening to leave Dundee altogether unless people start showing him some respect

[01:02:33] Adam Cox: And is that by throwing food at him?

[01:02:35] Kyle Risi: Need to respect me. Can you throw this herring at me, please?" Yeah Of course, he does this in the form of a poem titled Farewell to Dundee It's long, but here is an extract from it.

"The citizens of Dundee are very unkind to me, and they treat me with great hostility by throwing flour and rotten eggs at my head and keeping me in a constant state of dread."

And then it goes on. Now, in it, he basically threatens to leave unless everybody starts showing some respect towards him.

William, Adam, according to his writing, is fully expecting people to panic and realize what a massive cultural treasure he was and to start begging him to stay.

He sends the poem to the Dundee Weekly News, who print it alongside a brutal single-sentence review simply saying he'd probably stay at least another year once he realized that Dundee rhymes with 1893.

Which was the next year.

William doesn't leave. He stays. Well,

[01:03:35] Adam Cox: that's an idea.

[01:03:37] Kyle Risi: He's like, "What?" And so that New Year's Eve, William publishes a New Year's Eve resolution to leave Dundee, and the opening line is, "Welcome, thrice welcome, to the year 1893, for this is the year I intend to leave Dundee." And so at this point, he then packs up and he moves to Perth.

But he fell for it hook, line, and sinker. He was like, "That's a really good rhyme. I'm gonna capitalize on it." I'm gonna use that. "I'm gonna stay another year." He

[01:04:05] Adam Cox: stuck around. But then that makes me think, is he now just taking the piss a little bit?

[01:04:10] Kyle Risi: Who knows? It's weird. And so, like, he's threatening to leave. The papers are like, "Nah, he'll stick around when he realizes that there's an easy rhyme to be had." William's like, "They're completely right."

[01:04:20] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:04:20] Kyle Risi: And he just waits another year. So William and his wife, they move to Perth. It's a much smaller city. There's also a lot fewer opportunities for work there.

But that didn't matter, because in 1894, William falls victim to a Nigerian prince scam.

[01:04:36] Adam Cox: Or the, the equivalent?

[01:04:38] Kyle Risi: Yes.

[01:04:39] Adam Cox: Otherwise, that scam's been going a while.

[01:04:41] Kyle Risi: I know. Basically, some local pranksters wanted to test how far his legendary lack of self-awareness would go.

They send him a letter pretending to be a representative of the King of Burma saying that the king wished to grant him a knighthood for his supreme services to the field of poetry.

Right. And in the letter, it announces that they have awarded him the honorary title of Topaz McGonagle. Sorry, I beg your pardon, Sir Topaz McGonagle, the Grand Knight of the Holy Order of the White Elephant of Burma.

[01:05:13] Adam Cox: Oh, what a title

[01:05:14] Kyle Risi: And from that day onwards until the day that he dies, William exclusively refers to himself as Sir William Topaz McGonagal, Knight of the White Elephant of Burma.

[01:05:25] Adam Cox: Are you serious?

[01:05:26] Kyle Risi: I swear to God.

[01:05:29] Adam Cox: How do you write that on an application form?

[01:05:32] Kyle Risi: I don't know But here's the thing, the scam should have been super obvious to anyone because So Topaz is a reference to Sir Topas with an S as a character from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, where The Tale of Sir Topas is itself a deliberately dreadful piece of verse.

[01:05:53] Adam Cox: Oh.

[01:05:54] Kyle Risi: So they're basically saying that is him, but he doesn't pick up on that-

It's

[01:05:57] Adam Cox: very meta ...

[01:05:58] Kyle Risi: at all. He is so meta. Even back there in the Victorian times- ... they were. But he doesn't pick up on it.

[01:06:03] Adam Cox: I didn't, but then I guess maybe you would or-

[01:06:05] Kyle Risi: Well, you would if you're a literary kind of scholar or someone who's really... especially The Canterbury Tales, they were huge, right?

[01:06:12] Adam Cox: Are you saying that he's a literary scholar?

[01:06:13] Kyle Risi: He is putting himself in that realm, right?

[01:06:16] Adam Cox: Mm.

[01:06:16] Kyle Risi: So eventually, Adam, in 1895, after really struggling in Perth, William, or Sir William, and his wife, they decide to move to Edinburgh. The city is obviously bigger, and he's...

Remember, he's been around for, like, a good 25 years at this point, and by this point, their livelihood hinges on him capitalizing on the fact that he has amassed this kind of cult following. However, after five years in 1900, he's now kind of sort of milked everything that the city has to offer.

People will eventually lose interest. He's already been to a lot of the theaters around. He's busked a lot. It's a lot harder for him to make money, but it's also a lot harder for him to now get around because he's 75 at this point, or we think he's 75. He's also now struggling to kind of, like, sell his work on the street.

Mm-hmm. Like, it's cold. He's older. Like, he just wants to be at home with his slippers on.

It seems that his very close friends, they do support him during this really brief period. But sadly, Adam, in 1902, William eventually dies, and we think he was 77 at the time on account that, of course, we can't pin down the exact year that he was born.

[01:07:20] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:21] Kyle Risi: And what is really sad, and probably a result of how broke he was at the time, he ends up being buried in an unmarked grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh. Did we go to Edinburgh together?

[01:07:32] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:07:32] Kyle Risi: Remember when we went up to the castle?

[01:07:34] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:34] Kyle Risi: Um, as you come down that hill, there's a little churchyard there.

That's where he's said to be buried.

[01:07:39] Adam Cox: Ah.

[01:07:39] Kyle Risi: So we probably walked past it.

[01:07:41] Adam Cox: So why an unmarked grave? Is it because he didn't have the money for-

[01:07:44] Kyle Risi: He didn't have the money. He, he died broke, basically. So, like, yeah, he had a lot of friends to support him, but that was in life, right?

And it was quite common for a lot of people, unless you were really notable, to be buried in a, what they call a commoners grave.

When we have, like, an unmarked grave today, when we say that, it normally means like, oh, we don't know who that person was, or-

[01:08:00] Adam Cox: Yeah ...

[01:08:00] Kyle Risi: they don't have identity, but it's normally if you're really poor. And the positive thing is that in 1999, he did eventually get a memorial plaque in his honor, which if you are ever in Edinburgh, definitely go see it, or you can kind of see it on Google Street View as well.

And it basically reads, "William McGonagall, poet and tragedian." And then there's an extract just underneath it, which is from the poem A Requisite to the Queen, which is the first poem that he ever wrote to Queen Victoria asking for her patronage . And the line reads, "I am your gracious majesty, ever faithful to thee. William McGonagall, the poor poet that lives in Dundee." And just really sweet.

[01:08:37] Adam Cox: I mean, the fact that he had this legacy- and he's not that famous in a way, but he still gets this. We're still talking about him-

[01:08:45] Kyle Risi: Yeah ...

[01:08:46] Adam Cox: 100 years later, whatever.

[01:08:46] Kyle Risi: That's an incredible legacy. Do you know what I mean?

[01:08:48] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:08:49] Kyle Risi: But I also did read that he did try to secure his position as the official, poet laureate again after Lord Tennyson actually did die. Again, he walked up to Balmoral, but again, the Queen wasn't in. Yeah.

[01:09:01] Adam Cox: And so he's like, "

[01:09:01] Kyle Risi: Fuck, okay, this is it now."

[01:09:02] Adam Cox: He really should have checked.

[01:09:03] Kyle Risi: He should just check, right? Like, mate, telephone ahead.

But interestingly, just this year, in March 2026, a bunch of people looked into the spot where they think he might have been buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard, and actually they discovered that the church actually stopped accepting common burials in 1870, which was decades before he actually died.

So the truth is, as of this year, we don't actually know where he was buried.

[01:09:29] Adam Cox: Oh.

[01:09:30] Kyle Risi: Isn't that sad?

[01:09:31] Adam Cox: Yeah, but then I guess, again, he probably isn't the only person, right?

[01:09:35] Kyle Risi: Yeah, totally.

And Adam, that is a story of, I am proud to say, Sir William Topaz McGonagall, Knight of the White Elephant of Burma, the man considered the world's worst poet.

[01:09:48] Adam Cox: Yeah, I would agree with that. What a strange story.

[01:09:53] Kyle Risi: So weird, isn't it?

[01:09:55] Adam Cox: And that title just like, yeah, I still don't know if he believed it or if he leant into it.

[01:10:02] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:10:02] Adam Cox: Or

[01:10:03] Kyle Risi: I think- Or do you think he just didn't care? I don't know. It's just so tricky.

[01:10:06] Adam Cox: At the end of the day, maybe it's just a case of if it's making money, he carries on doing it.

[01:10:10] Kyle Risi: Exactly. I honestly think he did know. I generally think he was leaning into it. If he generally wasn't leaning into this, then for me, there's something really beautiful about living your life so blissfully unaware of your shortcomings. Like, I don't know what I would be capable of if I had that kind of confidence.

Do you know what I mean? What would I have achieved?

[01:10:33] Adam Cox: Probably not a lot.

[01:10:37] Kyle Risi: So I think the lesson to take home from the story is just do it. Don't listen to what other people say, and don't listen to people when they say you can't do it. Life is just so much more fun when-

[01:10:47] Adam Cox: You believe

[01:10:48] Kyle Risi: you

[01:10:48] Adam Cox: can ...

[01:10:48] Kyle Risi: it's, exactly, when it's carefree, and that's exactly how he seems to have lived his life. Yeah. Though I'm not convinced, but I hope that is how he generally did it.

[01:10:57] Adam Cox: Yeah. If someone tells you no, you tell them the opposite- Yes ... yes.

[01:11:05] Kyle Risi: And it worked for him because 100 years later people are still talking about him. Yeah. We're talking about him today.

[01:11:09] Adam Cox: He's got a plaque.

[01:11:10] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:11:10] Adam Cox: He's got a book.

[01:11:11] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Oh, and before I forget, J.K. Rowling has confirmed that Mrs. McGonagall was inspired by William.

[01:11:18] Adam Cox: Really? What, the name or?

[01:11:20] Kyle Risi: The name, yeah. She says in her own accounts of the character's creation, she describes enjoying the contrast between a brilliant professor and the famously inept poet whose name she decided to give her.

[01:11:32] Adam Cox: Yeah, interesting. Hmm.

[01:11:34] Kyle Risi: Amazing.

[01:11:35] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:11:35] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So yeah, any last words? Should I not do another one like this again? You seemed lost for a while, especially with all the retakes of me reciting the poetry.

[01:11:44] Adam Cox: No, it just makes me think maybe I can write 250 crap poems and get famous.

[01:11:49] Kyle Risi: You've written me 256 crap text messages that I haven't read yet. "Kyle, are you gonna empty the dishwasher?" I'll just ignore that one.

[01:11:56] Adam Cox: I just think that the amount of people that probably did try, and they really tried to, be an actor or, I don't know, a poet at that time.

And obviously we're not talking about them, but this guy somehow managed to carve his own little slice of history.

[01:12:10] Kyle Risi: Yeah. But, a- and again, it all comes down, like, would this have worked if he knew that he was bad or if he acknowledged that he was bad?

It doesn't work, right? Right. It only works as long as he's 100% unflappable about any criticism against him and completely ignores it.

Otherwise, it doesn't work. If a comedian had to get onto stage and just give really terrible jokes, it wouldn't work because he's a comedian, right? And, it would seem too forced if he was deliberately trying to be bad.

[01:12:41] Adam Cox: But then the only person that I think that does, deliberately be bad is, like, Tommy Cooper, where he's also a bit of a magician.

[01:12:47] Kyle Risi: Sure.

[01:12:48] Adam Cox: And the, that was his kind of whole routine, is the fact that things would go wrong- Yeah ... and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. So unless you can, really convince people-

[01:12:55] Kyle Risi: You have to embody the character, right? Yeah. You have to come in. I think he came in real bad initially, and then, uh, he just stuck with it. But if he had came in good and then reverts to being bad, then you can't do it that way, right?

[01:13:06] Adam Cox: Yeah, yeah. So-

[01:13:07] Kyle Risi: It's fascinating. He- I think he might have been a genius.

[01:13:09] Adam Cox: It has to ... it was an act.

[01:13:12] Kyle Risi: It was an act.

[01:13:13] Adam Cox: Yeah. I don't know if he's a genius. It was just an act.

[01:13:16] Kyle Risi: But he's fooled people for 100 years. Even now people aren't, sure, right? Like, it's still a mystery and I think there's a geniusness in that.

[01:13:24] Adam Cox: Okay.

[01:13:25] Kyle Risi: Okay. Should we run the damn outro?

[01:13:26] Adam Cox: Let's run the outro.

[01:13:27] Kyle Risi: And that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium, an assembly of fascinating things. We hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did.

[01:13:36] Adam Cox: And if today's episode has sparked your curiosity, then please do us a favor and follow us on your favorite podcast app. It truly makes a world of difference and it helps more people discover the show.

[01:13:47] Kyle Risi: And for our dedicated freaks out there, don't forget that next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon and as always, it is completely free to access.

[01:13:55] Adam Cox: And if you want even more, then you can join our certified freaks tier to unlock the entire archive. You get to delve into exclusive content and get a sneak peek at what's coming next.

[01:14:05] Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday and until then, remember, confidence will get you a long way, but it will not get you through those gates at Balmoral.

[01:14:14] Adam Cox: Very true.

[01:14:15] Kyle Risi: See you next time.

[01:14:16] Adam Cox: See ya.