Biography
Other info : Bibliography
J. Gordon Coogler (1865–1901), or John Brown 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 by mocking him as an example of the supposedly poor state of arts and letters in the American South.
Coogler was born in South Carolina during the last year of the American Civil War and spent his entire life in that state. After his father's death on January 8, 1878, 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 both praise and 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.[1]
Coogler's verse attracted mocking attention from prominent American magazines, including Puck and Munsey's Magazine. Coogler once complained in verse about what he considered the unfairness of literary critics
