Beware the Verse: Ten Poets You Should Maybe Be Just as Happy Aren’t In Your Writers Group

Serendipity strikes again with this one blundered on by pure chance, plus a bit of the carney game known as Facebook.  And not only that, I’ll confess to amusedly tattling on Number 6 myself in terms of the soap opera quality of his once upon a time private life (“Hi there, Claire Clairmont!”).  But yes, these guys could be dangerous too — or just bad to be near.  Or, to quote Matthew Keyte’s “10 Poets Who Were Completely Mad, Bad, And Dangerous to Know” on LISTVERSE.COM:  Poets are sensitive, ethereal creatures, ineffectual dreamers obsessed with metaphors and finding the right rhythms and rhymes.  They’re generally harmless, right?  Not always.  On this list, there are killers, crooks, plotters, rakes, a blackmailer, several revolutionaries, heartbreakers, duelists, drunkards, an opium fiend, a serious oddball, and even one fascist.  To borrow the words of Lady Caroline Lamb, who played mistress to one of them, these men were mad, bad, and dangerous to know.  So you never know, eh?

But, whether lover of poetry or actual poet, the list is fun.  To see it yourself (and you know you want to) press here.