Bad poet

Poetaster /poʊɪtæstər/, like rhymester or versifier, is a derogatory term 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. It was first used in English by Ben Jonson in his 1600 play Cynthia's Revels; immediately afterwards Jonson chose it as the title of his 1601 play Poetaster. In that play the "poetaster" character is a satire on John Marston, one of Jonson's rivals in the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres.

While poetaster has always been a negative appraisal of a poet's skills, rhymester (or rhymer) and versifier have held ambiguous meanings depending on the commentator’s opinion of a writer's verse. Versifier is often used to refer to someone who produces work in verse with the implication that while technically able to make lines rhyme they have no real talent for poetry. Rhymer on the other hand is usually impolite despite attempts to salvage the reputation of rhymers such as the Rhymers' Club and Rhymer being a common last name.

The faults of a poetaster frequently include errors or lapses in their work's meter, badly rhyming words which jar rather than flow, oversentimentality, too much use of the pathetic fallacy and unintentionally bathetic choice of subject matter. Although a mundane subject in the hands of some great poets can be raised to the level of art, such as On First Looking into Chapman's Homer by John Keats or by Thomas Gray, others merely produce bizarre poems on bizarre subjects, an example being James McIntyre, who wrote mainly of cheese.

...
Wikipedia