J. Gordon Coogler also called "John Brown Gordon Coogler" and "James Gordon Coogler," was an American poet who achieved notoriety during his lifetime as a prolific producer of bad verse. Essayist H.L. Mencken is credited with assuring Coogler's lasting fame as a poetaster

Poetaster

Poetaster, like rhymester or versifier, is a contemptuous name often applied to bad or inferior poets. Specifically, poetaster has implications of unwarranted pretentions to artistic value. The word was coined in Latin by Erasmus in 1521...

 by mocking him as an example of the supposedly poor state of arts and letters in the American South.

Life

Coogler was born in South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

 during the last year of the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 and spent his entire life in that state. After his father's death in 1880, Coogler went to work to support his mother and two sisters. He opened a shop advertising "Poems Written While You Wait." Although his verses attracted ridicule, he sought to promote his business by distributing self-published booklets of original poems. According to his obituary in the Columbia State newspaper, Coogler published five thousand short collections of original verse during his lifetime, besides two versions of his book-length collection titled Purely Original Verse.

Coogler's verse attracted mocking attention from prominent American magazines, including Puck

Puck (magazine)

Puck was America's first successful humor magazine of colorful cartoons, caricatures and political satire of the issues of the day. It was published from 1871 until 1918.-History:...

 and Munsey's Magazine

Munsey's Magazine

Munsey's Weekly, later known as Munsey's Magazine was a thirty-six page quarto magazine founded by Frank A. Munsey in 1889. Munsey aimed at "a magazine of the people and for the people, with pictures and art and good cheer and human interest throughout". John Kendrick Bangs was the editor. The...

. Coogler once complained in verse about what he considered the unfairness of literary critics:

Oh you critics! — If an author errs in a single line,

That line you’ll surely quote,

And will give it as a sample fair

Of all he ever wrote.

Legacy

Nearly two decades after Coogler's death, H.L. Mencken selected the following brief poem as the motto

Motto

A motto is a phrase meant to formally summarize the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization. A motto may be in any language, but Latin is the most used. The local language is usual in the mottoes of governments...

 of his 1920 essay "The Sahara of the Bozart":

Alas! for the South, her books have grown fewer—

She never was much given to literature.

Mencken went on to mock southern literature by crowning Coogler as "the last bard of Dixie

Dixie

Dixie is a nickname for the Southern United States.- Origin of the name :According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origins of this nickname remain obscure. According to A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles , by Mitford M...

."

From the 1890s into the 20th century, newspapers quoted that unintentionally humorous couplet, often from memory and in garbled form. Little else about Coogler was remembered besides the one couplet and his identity as a southerner.

In the late 20th century conservative political commentator R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. invented the annual J. Gordon Coogler Award as a booby prize

Booby prize

A booby prize is a joke prize usually given in recognition of a terrible performance or last-place finish. A person who finishes last, for example, may get a booby prize such as a worthless coin. Booby prizes are sometimes humorously and jokingly coveted as an object of pride.Booby prizes, however,...

 for the "worst book of the year." The announcement of the prize has appeared annually in conservative organs including Human Events

Human Events

Human Events is a weekly American conservative magazine. It takes its name from the first sentence of the United States Declaration of Independence...

and The American Spectator

The American Spectator

The American Spectator is a conservative U.S. monthly magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. From its founding in 1967 until the late 1980s, the small-circulation magazine featured the writings of authors...

. According to literary critic Bryan Giemza, other "mock-serious Coogler societies" exist and grant awards for bad writing.

The personal papers of J. Gordon Coogler are housed at the University of South Carolina

University of South Carolina

The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with 7 surrounding satellite campuses. Its historic campus covers over in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House...

.

Works

• Purely Original Verse, 5 editions (1891-1897).
• Purely Original Verse: Complete Works, and a Number of New Productions, in One Volume, 2 editions (1897http://www.archive.org/details/purelyoriginal00coogrich, 1901).