the world's worst poet

It gives me a sense of satisfaction, that I am not branded as the world's best poet, though I tried hard for it. However, read on about the person, who has managed to keep this recognition:
(As published in National Post)
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Posted: June 11, 2008, 2:54 PM by Marni Soupcoff
Ian Hunter
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On May 16, a collection of 35 poems by William Topaz McGonagall (1825-1902) was sold at auction in Edinburgh for more than $10,000. That's not a high price for, say, a single poem by Robert Burns. But for McGonagall, known as "the world's worst poet," it is remarkable.
In his day, McGonagall was often pelted with eggs and rotten fruits at public recitals (often given in pubs to protest against excessive drinking). McGonagall would be sad to learn that perhaps his most famous poem, Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silver Tay, is used in schools as an object lesson in how not to write poetry. When he died penniless in 1902, McGonagall was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh in an unmarked pauper's grave.
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silver Tay!
I hope that God will protect all passengers
By night and by day,
And that no accident befall them while crossing
The Bridge of the Silvery Tay, For that would be most awful to be seen
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.
McGonagall must have had a touch of the prophet about him because a decade or so after he wrote that poem (in fact on Dec. 20, 1879), the Tay railway bridge collapsed in a gale; there was a train passing over and 75 passengers plunged to their death. An inquiry concluded that the bridge (rather like McGonagall's poems) was "badly designed, badly built and badly maintained." On hearing of the disaster, McGonagall felt compelled to compose again:
O ill-fated bridge of the silvery Tay, I must now conclude my lay, By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say, Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses build.
The less chance we have of being killed.
Born in Edinburgh of Irish parents, McGonagall followed the weaver's trade, although without much success. In June 1878, he was sued by a Dundee grocer for theprincely sum of six pounds; the best McGonagall could offer was to repay the debt at the rate of three shillings a week. When the grocer protested that it would take 120 weeks to repay, McGonagall solemnly insisted that he could not do more because his primary responsibility was to the muse of poetry.
Since the time of Robert Burns (1759-1796), all Scots poets have attempted to write about Nature's glories and the lessons she imparts; McGonagall was no exception (however lamentable the results):
As I chanced to see trouts leaping in the River o' Glenshee,
It helped to fill my heart with glee, And to anglers I would say without any doubt
There's plenty of trouts there for pulling out.
McGonagall also fancied himself an actor although (perhaps understandably) his services were seldom in demand. On one occasion, he paid the Director of a theatre to be allowed to play the title role in Macbeth. McGonagall persuaded sufficient friends and acquaintances to attend the play as to avoid a financial disaster. But it was not an artistic triumph; at the end, when Macduff should kill Macbeth, McGonagall became convinced that the actor playing Macduff was deliberately trying to upstage him, and he refused to die.
One of the most poignant incidents in McGonagall's career occurred in 1892 when, following the death of poet laureate Alfred Tennyson, McGonagall walked the 60 miles from Dundee to Balmoral Castle through pelting rain in an attempt to persuade Queen Victoria to name him as poet laureate. The castle gatekeeper informed McGonagall that the Queen was not in residence (which was untrue) and McGonagall gathered his greatcoat around him, turned and trudged back home. This humiliation did not deter from lauding his Sovereign in verse:
Beautiful Empress of India and England's Gracious Queen, I send you a Shakespearian Address written by me.
And I think if your Majesty reads it, right pleased you will be. And my heart it will leap with joy, if it is patronized by Thee.
As will by now be obvious, McGonagall was deaf to poetic diction, meter and rhyme, and had nothing to say. As one critic put it, he was "so giftedly bad he backed unwittingly into genius."
In 1894 McGonagall became Sir William, having been knighted in absentia by King Thibaw Min of Burma and given the title White Elephant of Burma. McGonagall henceforth used this title shamelessly to promote his verses.
But it is McGonagall who has laughed last. For over a century, his poems have never been out of print. There is a McGonagall Square in Dundee, and a McGonagall Society which assembles once a year to eat a banquet in reverse order, starting with desserts, moving through entrees, and concluding with appetizers. The world's worst poet lives on.