A Dirty Little Present From Your Crush (poetry week) - That Was Genius Episode 54

There once was a podcast on history. And why they still did it's a mystery. This week's about verse, so Sam's picked the worst. And Tom's done Catullus for his story.

Yes, it's poetry week! Tom kicks us off with a look at the absolutely filthy mind of the famed Roman poet Catullus. Telling your rival to quite literally suck your d**k has never sounded so beautiful.

Next, Sam takes us on a tour of the poets and poems widely believed to be the worst in the English language: The Tay Bridge Disaster by William McGonagall, A Tragedy by Theophile Marzials, and On Visiting Westminster Abbey by Amanda McKittrick Ros. Three terrible poems, topped by a very funny, very rude one from Gulliver's Travels author, Jonathan Swift.

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Welcome to That Was Genius: Two blokes. A 12-hour time difference. An immature sense of humour. And 10,000 years of human civilisation. A weekly podcast looking at the weirder side of history.

Join Sam Datta-Paulin (he likes history and lives in Britain) and Tom Berry (he also likes history but lives in New Zealand), for a weekly reflection on the bold, the brilliant... And the downright strange.

From bizarre events and stories to equally odd inventions, barely a day goes by without something incredible (or incredibly stupid) happening around the world.

We upload new episodes every Wednesday night/Thursday morning (UK time).

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That Was Genius is produced by Glorious Republic Broadcasting.