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Born around 1830, the Dundee Bard, William McGonagall,
was a complete, if eccentric, man of his time, having
an unshakeable faith in a Christian God, an Emperor
Queen and an omnipotent Shakespeare. McGonagall worked
first as a hand-loom weaver in the jute factory in Dundee,
where to the consternation of his work-mates, he used
to bellow the soliloquies of Shakespeare in time to
the clacking rhythm of the loom and this encouraged
him to think of himself as a reciter.
Around 1870, in what may have been an epileptic fit,
he felt inspired by God to write his own poetry, and
from that moment it was downhill all the way. He gave
up his job in the mill, took to the street corners,
and tried to sell copies of his execrable verses at
a penny a time. An object of ridicule, he survived another
thirty years on sheer optimism and belief in his God-given
vocation to write verse. After all, God didn't say it
had to be good verse.
Songs and laughs at his expense abound in The Real
McGonagall but perhaps in the end the last laugh
is his, because the printed and bound verses, The
Poetic Gems of William McGonagall, still sell today.
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